


This Is Where It Gets Complicated

by mountain_born



Series: The Marvelous Tale of an Agent, an Archer, and an Assassin [38]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Doctor Who/Avengers Crossover Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-08-31 15:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8582929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_born/pseuds/mountain_born
Summary: There's a platoon of Judoon upon the Moon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days, I'm going to have to throw my beta, **like-a-raven** , a proper ticker tape parade. Fifty-seven pages she helped me whip into shape this time!
> 
> This story is adapted from the third season Doctor Who episode, _Smith and Jones._ It's been given a massive _Marvelous Tale_ makeover.
> 
> There will be six chapters with one chapter going up per day. Happy reading!

_June 12, 2012_  
_SHIELD Headquarters, New York_

Nick Fury sometimes wished it were possible to buy stock in midnight oil. God knew he burned enough of it. He read back over the latest report on the situation in Newark. The initial intelligence had been inconclusive, but now it was pretty clear that they were looking at a Code Pandora in New Jersey.

 _Code Pandora_ was SHIELD speak for _problem of possible or certain extra-terrestrial origin._ Loki had been classified as one, as had the Chitauri Invasion. On the upside, Newark didn’t appear to be on that level of seriousness. All the evidence pointed to a simple case of hoarded Chitauri tech. 

On the downside, it was apparently being hoarded in St. Mark’s Hospital, home of an award-winning cardiac care unit and a newly renovated and expanded pediatric ward. 

Fury scrolled back to the satellite imagery of the hospital. The building was a psychedelic mass of yellow and green. The energy signature was a clear match to the Chitauri weapons and tech that SHIELD had secured after the Battle of New York. SHIELD satellites had picked up the signal four hours ago; it had lasted approximately fifteen minutes, then disappeared. It had blipped back into existence twice more, but never for more than five minutes. 

“The first thing I’d want to know,” Phil Coulson said over the speaker phone, “is what they’re using to mask the energy signature. We have to figure this stuff has been there since just after the Battle, and we’re only now catching it. Technologically speaking, who can swing that?”

“It has to be a major player,” Fury said. “I’m looking forward to finding out who.”

Fury took exception to shit like this happening practically in his back yard. The readings that the satellite had picked up pointed to this being a massive hoard, not just one or two stray pieces of alien tech. Terrorist cells and criminal organizations had started offering obscene amounts of money for Chitauri weaponry on the black market before the dust from the Battle had settled. SHIELD had locked down the site as fast as they could, but clearly it hadn’t been fast enough.

Fury’s first instinct had been to call up a strike team to deal with the situation. Then he’d had a better idea. It was time to see what the Avengers could do when the world wasn’t in immediate peril.

“You think they’re up for this?” Fury said.

“I do,” Phil Coulson replied. “You let the Avengers go their separate ways for a while, and I think they needed that. But the longer they remain apart, the harder it’s going to be to pull them back together and shape them into a standing team. They need a mission. This will be a good one for them to get their feet wet on.”

Fury nodded silently. The Avengers had been given leave to scatter during the month of May. Song and Barton had gone down to their cabin in West Virginia. Stark had stayed in New York and so, to Fury’s surprise, had Banner. Rogers had gone off on a nostalgia tour, but he was back now, settling into an apartment in Brooklyn and commuting out to SHIELD Headquarters for work and training. 

That gave Fury five out of the six. Thor was on Asgard and therefore unreachable. Establishing reliable communication was high on Fury’s “to do” list.

“I have to admit, I’m not wild about the timing,” Fury said. “I’d rather send them on their first assignment with you here to act as their handler. As far as I can tell, respect for you is about the only thing they all have in common.”

Coulson had elected to do his physical rehab in Washington DC. The Triskellion’s physical therapy department was excellent, but Fury knew that Coulson had another motive for picking it. This allowed him to stay in Arlington with his lady friend, Valerie. Phil’s body wasn’t the only thing that had been patched up. It looked like his love life was on the mend too.

“I’m flattered,” Coulson replied. “My physical therapists say I should be cleared to come back to work by the end of July. You can hold off on the Avengers and just send a strike team. Clint and River could handle it on their own.”

“The probably could,” Fury said. “But I think you’re right. We need to break them in.”

The Avengers had pulled together and saved the world a month and a half ago, just as Fury had known (or at least had strongly hoped) they could. This assignment would be different. In some ways, it would be harder. The Avengers had formed a team, but now they had to figure out how to sustain it. They had to learn how to work together when they weren’t under the gun.

This was where things could get complicated. 

“I’ll call them in and brief them tomorrow morning,” Fury said. “We’ll see what they can do.”

*****

_June 13, 2012_  
 _SHIELD Headquarters, New York_

“My guess? It’s another update about the press coverage,” Clint said as he and River strolled toward the Administration Center, on their way to breakfast. “I don’t know why the hell Fury keeps making us read all of those briefs.”

Fury’s summons hadn’t exactly been heavy on the details. The Avengers were just supposed to report to his private briefing room at 0930 hours. 

“Possibly,” River replied as they walked up the steps to the main entrance. “I wouldn’t put it past Fury to have called a meeting just to pry Stark and Banner out of their labs and remind them that SHIELD exists.”

“Now there’s a pair of people I never would have pegged as being friends,” Clint said. “You know, with Stark being Stark and Banner and his--” Clint mimed Hulking out.

“I think Banner finds it refreshing, honestly,” River replied. “He must be used to people walking on eggshells around him when they know about the Other Guy.”

“Point. After you,” Clint said, holding the door and stepping aside briefly to let a pair of departing staff members pass. He tried to ignore the sidelong looks he got along with the _thank yous._

Clint was starting to get used to those looks. He and River had been getting them since they’d returned to SHIELD HQ. He couldn’t say he _liked_ them, but he was getting used to them.

At first he’d thought it was because of him, that people were still holding him responsible for working with Loki even though (at least officially) he’d been cleared of wrongdoing. There was a degree of that, but it had been River who’d put her finger on the main reason for the stares: they were Avengers now. That simple fact set Clint and River apart, even more so than they’d been as two of SHIELD’s most elite operatives. The response from their fellow agents and SHIELD personnel seemed to run the gamut from curiosity to admiration to poorly-concealed hostility. Clint really hoped the novelty wore off soon. 

Still, it could be worse, Clint reflected as he and River stepped into the lobby. The stares he and River got were nothing compared with what Rogers had to put up with. Hell, Stark and Rogers had it even worse off-base. Clint and River still had the luxury of anonymity outside of SHIELD. In spite of the media’s best efforts, the “two mysterious SHIELD agents at the center of the Battle of New York” were still only known as _Hawkeye_ and _Talon._

Clint knew that Stark didn’t care. He’d been in the media spotlight for decades. It was harder to tell what Rogers thought of it. Yeah, he’d been a celebrity in his own right, but it had probably been a lot different in the 1940s.

The object of that particular puzzle was dead ahead, standing in front of the Founders’ Wall. “Looks like he’s at it again,” Clint said.

“I see,” River murmured. It wasn’t the first time they’d seen Rogers standing in front of the wall, staring at the plaques of the Founders. “Should we?”

“Yeah, we probably should. Hey, Cap,” Clint said, raising his voice.

Rogers immediately turned. “Barton. Song. Morning,” he said with a faint smile.

Clint couldn’t remember deliberately setting out to make friends with someone since. . .hell, he’d probably been in kindergarten. Sure, he _had_ friends, but those friendships had just sort of happened organically. But over the last couple of weeks, since Cap had started coming to work on the base, Clint and River had both been taking deliberate stabs at being sociable with him. It was partly a matter of _hey, we’re on the same team so we should work on getting along_ and partly because they both felt a little sorry for the guy. 

Rogers seemed to appreciate the effort and responded in kind. So far, this mostly meant that they trained alongside each other. Rogers had hung out with Clint and River a few times outside of training, but Clint got the feeling that he wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable doing so.

Oh, well. Slow steps, right?

“We were heading in to breakfast,” Clint said, nodding his head in the general direction of the mess hall. “Want to join us?”

“Sure. Thanks.” Rogers fell into step with them as they followed the smells of bacon and coffee. “Mystery meeting with Fury? I figure we’ll want to be fortified for that.”

River chuckled. “You’re learning.”

“You’ll definitely want caffeine,” Clint added.

“Noted,” Roger said as they stepped into the mess hall. “So, how’s Agent Coulson doing? Have you talked to him lately?”

“He’s doing well,” River said. She picked up a tray from the stack at the head of the line. “Still in Arlington, under the tender ministrations of Ms. Custis.”

Clint groaned as he took two trays, handing one to Rogers. “Do you have to put it like that? It just sounds dirty.”

“I call them like I see them.”

Clint rolled his eyes at Rogers. “I swear to God, I can’t take her anywhere.”

Rogers smiled and actually looked amused, but there was also something there that was almost. . .envious, maybe? Clint sighed quietly. This whole new team thing was full of the damnedest landmines.

*****

“We’re late,” Bruce said.

“Only fashionably,” Tony replied, handing his ID badge to the guard manning the main gate of SHIELD Headquarters.

“I don’t think Fury cares about _fashionable,”_ Bruce replied, passing over his badge for inspection as well. The guard scanned both badges, handed them back, and waved them through.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Tony said. He grinned over at Bruce. “You’ve seen the coat, right?”

Bruce smiled, but even without being able to see it, he knew it was wan and a little sickly. He focused on keeping his breathing even as Tony drove them through the base to the Administration Center. _Nothing to worry about,_ he told himself. For the last several years (for a lifetime, it felt like) places like this had been nothing but bad news for him, but circumstances were different now.

He felt the Other Guy growl a bit in the back of his head. The Hulk always got antsy when he sensed that Bruce was anxious, frightened, angry, or in pain. Bruce supposed that if he were to take the Pollyanna approach, he could say that the Hulk was protective of his human alter ego. Unfortunately, the Hulk tended to cause more problems than he solved. And Avenger or not, invited guest or not, Bruce really didn’t want to Hulk out in the middle of SHIELD Headquarters.

That would be bad.

Instead, Bruce focused on the passing scenery, trying to remember what the buildings were. He and Tony had been invited out a few weeks ago for a tour of the place that, at least for now, was to be the center of Avenger operations. They been shown around by Agent Nadine Washington.

SHIELD Headquarters was huge, somewhere between one and two thousand acres. It was like a town unto itself, and what could be seen above ground was nothing compared to the complex that extended underground. It had all of the stuff that Bruce assumed came standard with highly advanced covert bases: command centers, residence halls, ranges, gyms, research and medical facilities, athletic fields, and airplane hangers. There were also some surprises like a recreation center complete with a food court and a small movie theater, a library, an honest-to-god gift shop in the lobby of the Administration Center, and a comprehensive child care center that was open 24/7/365.

Bruce had been a little shocked at that last one until Agent Washington pointed out that SHIELD’s facility was far more secure than any civilian daycare. And if agents had to leave their kids there for days, weeks, or even months on end, the staff knew how to deal with it.

The fact that an outfit like SHIELD prioritized employee morale, fun, and family-friendliness was both reassuring and weird.

Tony pulled into a parking space in front of the Administration Center. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go see what’s so important that Fury made us drive all the way out here for a face-to-face.”

“You could have flown,” Bruce pointed out as the got out of the car.

“Nah. I like to drive.” Tony twirled the keychain around his finger. “Besides, you never want to seem overeager on the first day of school.”

“So, we drove so that we could be late so that you could piss off Fury?”

“Would I do such a thing?”

“Yes,” Bruce replied. “Yes, you would.”

Tony just shrugged. “It’s good for him. Character building. Come on. Let’s go assemble, or whatever it is we do.”

Bruce shook his head and followed Tony into the building.

*****

Stark and Banner arrived at Fury’s private briefing room right on time for the meeting. River didn’t even try to hide her amusement over the fact that Fury had given Stark a start time that was thirty minutes earlier than the _actual_ start time.

“You’re kind of a manipulative son of a bitch, you know that, Fury?” Stark said conversationally as he and Banner took seats at the conference table.

“You say that like you’re new here,” Fury replied. “Get comfortable. We have a lot to go over this morning.”

Fury had a mission for the Avengers. River would have been lying if she’d claimed not to be excited at the prospect of getting back to work. Nadine passed out the briefing packets while Fury queued up the view screen. River skimmed the first page of the report, raising an eyebrow at a few pertinent bits of information. She knew that Clint was doing the same thing because she heard a muffled, “Fuck,” from her immediate right.

“As I’m sure you’re all aware,” Fury said, “in the immediate aftermath of the Battle, one of our primary objectives was to make sure that all Chitauri tech and weapons were gathered and secured. We got blockades set up as fast as we could, but we knew there was the possibility that something could have slipped past us. SHIELD satellites were programmed to scan for Chitauri energy signatures for that very reason. Approximately seventeen hours ago, we got a hit in Newark, New Jersey.”

Fury changed the image to an aerial view of downtown Newark. The streets and buildings were rendered in various shades of grey, save for one large structure which was marked by a large stain of yellow and green.

“This is St. Mark’s Hospital,” Fury said. “From what we were able to tell from the satellite readings, there’s a cache of Chitauri weaponry somewhere inside. And for it to show up as strongly as it does, it’s a large one.”

“A hospital?” Banner sounded appalled. “Why would anyone stockpile weapons in a hospital?”

“Actually, it’s not a bad strategy,” River said. “Hospitals are large buildings with plenty of hiding places. They’re secure without being fortified, and a lot of people come and go on a daily basis and at all hours. That means that the dealers could meet with contacts there without drawing undue notice. And, if things were to go south and the authorities started moving in, they have hundreds of helpless human shields right on site.”

It was kind of brilliant when you thought about it.

“If they’re stockpiling there, they must have someone on the inside,” Clint added. 

“SHIELD’s going to need to screen everyone who works there,” River said. “It could be a staff member. It could be an arms dealer posing as a staff member. It could be a staff member collaborating with the dealers or with an exploitable point for blackmail. In other words, it could literally be anyone.”

“Agent Moretti and her team are already reviewing the hospital’s personnel files,” Fury said. “They’ll flag anything that looks suspicious.”

“And then what?” Stark was giving Clint and River the sort of look that River usually saw directed at people who talked to themselves on the subway. “I assume you want the Avengers to do something about this, right?”

“I do,” Fury said. “This is your first mission. I want you to secure the Chitauri tech and apprehend those who are responsible for taking it.”

“I thought Loki was our first mission,” Rogers replied.

“Loki was an emergency response situation, which you all handled very well,” Fury replied. “This is a mission assignment. Less flying by the seats of your pants and more time to formulate a plan. We have a pile of alien weapons, unknown hostiles, and a lot of civilians in harm’s way. Now,” Fury rested his hands on the table, eying his team, “what are the Avengers going to do about it?”

*****

Apparently the first thing the Avengers were going to do was argue a lot. Fury found himself calculating how many days it was until Coulson was likely to return to work. _He_ could moderate these briefings.

Fury could see Song and Barton getting annoyed with the whole process fairly quickly. Those two were used to brainstorming just with each other and Coulson. They’d sort through options and contingencies until a strategy started to emerge. They were damn good at it, too. But now the number of people they had to collaborate with had more than doubled. The process wasn’t so smooth any more.

Rogers, somewhat unsurprisingly, favored the direct approach. Lock down the hospital and go straight in through the front doors, the sooner the better. Keep everyone at the hospital in their places while a search was carried out and the weapons were secured.

Stark favored a tech-based solution. He wanted time to develop a scanner so that they could pick up the energy signature again and find out, from a distance, exactly where the Chituari tech was being stashed. Then they could go in through the back and grab it quickly.

“That will take too much time,” Song argued. “Every patient in that hospital is potentially in danger as long as those weapons are there.”

“But we can’t just go in guns blazing,” Stark argued back. “You said it yourself, the place is full of human shields. There’s too much danger of collateral damage.”

“Then we need to eliminate that as a factor,” Song said. “We could try to create a scenario that will allow us to evacuate the hospital. That’ll at least get most of the civilians out of the line of fire.”

“But then we run the risk of tipping off the dealers,” Barton said. “I’m with Stark. I think we need to take our time on this one.”

“Thank you,” Stark said.

“Take our time to do what, exactly?” Rogers asked.  
“They’re not going to leave those weapons at the hospital indefinitely,” Barton said. “They’ll make a move, probably sooner than later. We should stake the place out and wait. When they transport the cache, we’ll take them once they’ve cleared the hospital.”

The debate continued. _Well, they’re butting heads, but at least they’re throwing ideas out there,_ Fury thought. _With one exception._

“Dr. Banner, you’re being awfully quiet,” Fury said.

Banner was doing a pretty good imitation of that kid who hunkered down at the back of the class and hoped that the teacher wouldn’t call on him.

“I, uh. . .” Banner leaned forward and folded his hands on the table as everyone else turned to look at him. “I’m not sure what you want me to say. I’m not really qualified in this spy, strategy stuff.”

“Neither am I. That’s never stopped me,” Stark said.

Fury pointedly ignored Stark. “Dr. Banner, you signed on with the Avengers. That means you contribute.”

All right, so _signed on_ was probably overstating it. But Banner had driven into the city on a half-dead motorcycle to help fight the Chitauri and he hadn’t fled town in the weeks since. That was close enough for Fury.

“I really wouldn’t know where to start,” Banner said.

“Just go with your gut,” Rogers said. “Based on what you know, how would you approach it?”

“Okay.” Banner cleared his throat. “I guess the main thing is that we shouldn’t do anything that would put the patients and hospital staff in danger. So, I think we should take our time, like Tony and Barton said. It seems like more information would help us, so maybe Agent Song or Agent Barton could sneak in undercover or something and see if they can find the weapons. We can plan the actual removal from there.”

“All right then.” Fury nodded. “We had two votes for acting immediately and two votes for taking our time and gathering more information. Our swing vote says that we go for the slow approach.”

“Wait, what? Swing vote?” Banner looked a little alarmed. “I don’t want to be the swing vote.”

“Then speak up faster next time,” Fury said. “Now, let’s figure out how this is going to work.”

*****

_June 13, 2012_  
 _Arlington, Virginia_

“But you came up with a plan, right?” Coulson said.

He heard a groan and a _flumph_ sound on the other end of the call that indicated that Clint had just fallen backward onto the sofa.

“Yeah. It only took five friggin’ hours.”

“For preliminary planning with a new team, that’s not too bad,” Coulson pointed out.

“You know,” Clint said, “River and I could go in and take care of this on our own, no problem. It would be a hell of a lot neater. Fury’s just using this as an excuse to make us team-build.”

“Probably,” Coulson replied. He figured the universe would forgive him for a small lie-by-omission; no need to bring up the fact that this had been partly his idea. “Fury’s going to be trusting you two to show Rogers, Stark, and Banner the ropes on this. They may be Avengers, but they’re not operatives. None of them have ever pulled an undercover assignment.”

Valerie arched an eyebrow at Phil as she walked by carrying a bowl of peas. Phil was sitting at the bar in Valerie’s kitchen while she made dinner. It was a graduation from his first week when she’d barely let him get off of the sofa. She’d even let him chop the carrots for the salad.

“Rogers might be okay. Maybe even Banner. But Stark--” Clint broke off for a moment, and Phil could hear a muffled exchange on the other end of the call. “Hang on. River wants to talk to you,” Clint said.

Phil waited patiently while Clint passed the phone over.

“Are you aware that we now have a public relations representative?” River asked without preamble.

She did not sound pleased.

“I knew that Fury planned to assign someone, yes.” Phil replied. It was in the briefing packet that Fury had sent him to Arlington with.

“Phil, we’re spies,” River said. “We’re not supposed to _have_ any relations with the public.”

“You’re also Avengers now,” Phil replied. “Don’t worry. The SHIELD PR officer will help ensure that your identities are contained. Let Stark and Rogers deal with the spotlight. It sounds like that’s what your plan is hinging on anyway, right?”

“I suppose.” River sounded doubtful. 

“Who did Fury assign?”

“Agent Miller. Supposedly he’s the best in the department.”

“I don’t know much about the PR department, but if Fury assigned him, I’m sure it’s accurate,” Phil said.

River made a noncommittal, grumpy noise. “Here, Clint wants you back.”

“So, how’s rehab going?” Clint asked once he had custody of the phone again.

“Pretty good. Apparently my progress is astonishing.”

“Let’s hear it for Rory and the TARDIS’s pharmacy,” Clint said. “So, when do you think you’ll be back?”

“It’s hard to say, kid. Not for at least a month. Possibly a little longer.”

Coulson’s eyes strayed to Valerie, who was shelling the peas. Under other circumstances, the very thought of more than a month of enforced medical leave would have sent him climbing the walls. Spending it in Arlington with Valerie, though, felt like a long overdue vacation. Now that they had finally hashed out their relationship (in their forties, but who was counting?) it was nice to have some time to shore up the foundations.

“But I _will_ be back,” Coulson assured Clint. “And I’m still in the loop, so be sure to send me your report on this mission once it’s done.”

Clint snorted. “The mission is a milk run.”

“You still have to write a report. And milk run or not, promise me that you guys will be careful out there.”

Valerie caught Phil’s attention. “You should ask them about the thing,” she said.

“Right,” Phil replied. “Hey, Valerie was wondering if you and River wanted to come down here for a visit. A long weekend, or something.”

“She was?”

Phil could practically see the skeptical expression on Clint’s face. Clint and River and Valerie hadn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot thanks to some premature assumptions and glorious lack of communication (Phil claimed the blame for the latter). Valerie was hoping to extend an olive branch.

“Yeah. Maybe when you guys are through with this mission. You can give me that report in person.”

By the time Phil put away his phone, dinner was almost ready.

“Is everything okay?” Valerie asked, setting a small platter of meatloaf and mashed potatoes on the bar.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” This time last year, Phil would have left it at that, and Valerie wouldn’t have pressed. The game had changed now. “Clint and River are being sent on their first mission as part of the Avengers, tracking down some arms dealers who are stockpiling stolen Chitauri technology. They have some concerns.”

“They have some concerns about arms dealers after fighting off an alien army and saving the planet?”

“It’s more the new team aspect that has them worried.”

“It’ll be a big change. Hey, hey, _hey.”_ Valerie lightly swatted Phil’s hand as he went to pick up the platter to move it to the kitchen table. “You’re not supposed to lift anything heavy, remember?”

“It’s a _plate,_ Val.” Valerie just gave him a look and handed him the silverware. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Look at it this way, Agent Coulson. The better you follow orders, the faster you’ll be able to get back on the job and keep the Avengers out of trouble yourself.”

*****

_June 13, 2012_  
 _Newark, New Jersey_  
 _St. Mark’s Hospital_

Human bodies were so disgustingly spare. 

Zab of House Yilad rolled his head irritably; a single head, to go with the single set of arms and the single set of legs. His own race, the Zecralt were rather more. . . _robust_ when it came to appendages. The human whose bio-template he was using for his disguise (Carl Dalton, hospital janitor) was on the skinny side as well, which just added to the discomfort.

Still, it wasn’t for much longer. In three revolutions, their house’s trade ship would be back to pick up him, his compatriots, and the hoard of Chitauri weapons they’d managed to collect. Chitauri weapons were hard to come by. The House of Yilad would be rich once they sold this lot on the black market. And Earth was such a backwater they had little need to worry about interference from the Shadow Proclamation. 

As Zad rolled the janitor’s cart down the hallway his house cohort Druts fell into step beside him. Druts’ bio-template disguise had been taken from a human named Benjamin Cruz, a hospital security guard. His disguise, like Zad’s, allowed him to move all over the hospital with ease. (The real Benjamin Cruz, like the real Carl Dalton, was hibernating in a gel pod in his solitary apartment. It wouldn’t do to have them turn up for work while their identities were being used.)

“Anything to report?” Zad asked Druts.

“Another uninteresting day among the diseased,” Druts grumbled. 

Druts was a bit phobic about germs, especially alien germs.

“Once you get your share from the sale, you can go to the Sisters of Plentitude for a full cleanse,” Zad assured him, parking his cart against the wall and leading the way into the third-floor break room.

The break room was deserted, as it had been since they had taken it over. Any of the humans who might be inclined to use this room would have found themselves, without really knowing why, moving past it and going to a different common area. Zad felt the faint tickle of the perception filters and low-grade sonic repellers they’d installed in the ceiling. Those were still working fine, fortunately.

There were six vending machines, three in a row down each wall. Out-of-order signs were posted on all three of the machines on the left-hand side—an added precaution to make the room even less inviting. Zad went to the center one, waved at the camera in the back, and punched in his passcode on the keypad. The vending machine swung outward, and Zad and Druts squeezed through into the chamber behind it. 

They greeted the other three members of their cohort: Abea, Riph, and Chista (in the guises of staff members Jennifer Nwoke, Rita Dunlevy, and Lewis Kucharski). It was a tight fit in the bolt hole between the five of them, the pile of weapons, and the cloaking generator. Abea had the generator’s access panel opened and was tinkering with the innards, a grumpy look on her borrowed face.

“It’s not malfunctioning again, is it?” Zad asked.

All this work would be for nothing if someone, earthbound or otherwise, detected the Chitauri energy signature. The generator had already broken down once. It had stopped entirely yesterday and been down for nearly a quarter of an hour before Abea could get it up and running again.

“My patchwork is holding up,” Abea replied, closing the panel.

“Your use of the word _patchwork_ doesn’t inspire confidence,” Chista said. “I thought you were schooled to be some sort of mechanical mastermind.”

“Look, do you think it was easy to get this set up?” Abea gestured around the small room. “It was no small trick, let me tell you. Besides, have any authorities descended on our heads? No. No one has noticed us.”

“I wouldn’t be so flip,” Riph said, “not with the Avengers within sneezing distance.”

“They _were_ within sneezing distance,” Druts said. “Tony Stark is the only one anyone has seen since the Chitauri attacked. No one knows where the others are. Aside from him and Mr. Patriotism, no one even knows who the others are.”

“How do you know that?”

“Humans. They never turn their televisions off.”

Zad frowned as some of Carl Dalton’s memories bumped and bobbed around inside of his head. Memory-bleed was a mildly annoying side effect of this form of camouflage, and was usually tied to strong emotion. Mention of the Avengers was guaranteed to cause bleed from Carl. The man had been trapped on a bus in Midtown when the Chitauri had attacked. 

If he concentrated, Zad could see, in his mind’s eye, the two Avengers who had helped Carl and the other passengers get off the bus. One of them had been a sandy-haired man wielding a bow. The other had been a young woman dressed all in black. The press called them (when they mentioned them at all) Hawkeye and Talon. 

Zad shook his head. Carl’s memories were neither here nor there.

“We’ll take turns monitoring the generator,” Zad told the others. “We’re almost home free. In a few revolutions we’ll be off this planet and then we’ll be rich.”

All they had to do was bide their time.


	2. Chapter 2

_June 14, 2012_  
_Newark, New Jersey_  
_SHIELD Safe House_

Bruce wondered exactly how SHIELD safe houses worked.

Surely they didn’t just happen to have a furnished, two-bedroom apartment conveniently situated within blocks of St. Mark’s hospital, right? But if SHIELD didn’t own or lease this place, how did it work? Was there a short-term rental market for spy agencies? Did they just buy up buildings where they thought they _might_ need them? Did SHIELD have its own team of realtors? 

He supposed he could ask Agent Barton and Agent Song, but he didn’t want to come across as a superfluous civilian any more than he probably already did. They’d arrived in Newark that afternoon and so far Bruce’s main contribution to their mission had been walking to the Chinese place down the block to pick up dinner.

Bruce slouched on the living room sofa. He glanced up from the physics equations he was tinkering with to sneak a look at the two agents. Barton and Song were sitting at the kitchen table. Barton was sorting and inspecting arrowheads. Song was on her laptop reviewing their intel. The final reports had come in from SHIELD’s team of data analysts. No credible red flags had come up on the hospital’s employment roster. 

It was interesting to watch Barton and Song work, Bruce thought. The word that came to mind was _seamless._ Of course, Song and Barton were basically an old married couple who just hadn’t gotten around to getting married yet, so that probably shouldn’t be surprising.

They were also scarily aware of their surroundings. Barton looked up from his work, directly at Bruce. 

“Everything okay, Banner?” he asked.

“Yeah. Fine.” Bruce dropped his notebook and somewhat self-consciously linked his fingers and stretched out his arms. “Just thinking about tomorrow.”

“Do you want to go over the plan again?”

“No. I think I’ve got it.”

The plan the Avengers had devised for finding the weapons cache in St. Mark’s Hospital was pretty straightforward. Tomorrow, mid-morning, Iron Man and Captain America were going to turn up to pay a visit to the kids in the pediatric ward. While everyone in the hospital (including, hopefully, the arms dealers) was distracted by having the two flashiest Avengers (barring Thor) in the building, Bruce, Agent Song, and Agent Barton, disguised as hospital employees, would search for the weapons. Tony had been able to throw together a small, hand-held scanner for the Chitauri energy signature. It didn’t have great range, but it was better than nothing.

“Nothing to worry about,” Barton said with a friendly smile. “Just follow our lead and you’ll be fine.”

Bruce wondered if he was that transparent. Upon a moment of reflection he figured that, yeah, he probably was.

“Spy games and covert ops really aren’t my area of expertise,” he admitted.

“Maybe not,” Barton said, “but you stayed under the radar and evaded a government agencies and mercenaries for years. If you could handle Szczecin, you can handle this.”

Bruce blinked. Yeah, he had known that SHIELD had been keeping tabs on him. Agent Song had said as much when she’d turned up in Calcutta to bring him in to help find the Tesseract. _We never lost you, Doctor. We’ve kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent._

Now he wondered exactly how close a tab they’d been keeping. He’d barely been in Szczecin, Poland for a month, three years ago. He’d had to leave in a hurry because a group of armed men (Bruce never had learned who they were) had tried to corner him in the dingy little apartment building he’d holed up in. Fortunately, he’d been able to give them the slip without the Other Guy coming out to play. 

He’d never been quite sure _how_ he’d given them the slip, though. Bruce had just chalked it up to a rare manifestation of good luck. Now he wondered if there had been some more mundane intervention going on.

“SHIELD was in Szczecin?”

“Yeah,” Barton said. “I shadowed you for about three weeks.”

“ _You_ did?”

Bruce wasn’t expecting that. He also wasn’t sure how to take the fact that SHIELD had had an assassin following him around.

“Was that so if I had an incident, you could. . .what? Kill me?”

He meant to say it jokingly. Somehow the joking element got lost between his brain and his mouth. Bruce saw Barton’s friendly smile evaporate, replaced by something more guarded.

“No,” Barton said. “I was just there to keep an eye on you.”

Bruce noticed that Song had stopped working on her computer and was watching the two of them with a carefully neutral expression. 

“But that’s your job, right?” Bruce wasn’t sure why he was pushing this, except that knowing SHIELD had been watching him for that long made the back of his neck crawl. “You’re an assassin. Killing people is your job.”

Song was frowning at him now. Barton began to methodically stack his arrowheads back in their case.

“I was put on your detail in Szczecin because I’m really good at watching people without being seen,” he said, “and because I’m fluent in Polish.” He snapped the case closed and stood, turning his attention to Song. “Do you mind if I take first crack at the shower?”

“No. Go ahead,” she said. Barton nodded and disappeared into the bedroom the two of them were sharing.

Awkward silence descended in the main room. Well, at least it felt awkward to Bruce. Agent Song, he was fairly certain, had never experienced an awkward moment in her life. She’d gone back to typing on her laptop, apparently ignoring him.

“I, um. . .” God, he’d handled that badly, hadn’t he? “I didn’t mean to--”

“Yes, you did,” Song interrupted calmly, still not looking up from her computer.

Bruce had nothing to say in his defense, because. . .yeah. He’d kind of been a jerk.

Song finished up whatever she was working on and closed her laptop. Now she did look at Bruce, and he thought he vastly preferred it when she’d acted like he wasn’t in the room.

“You should probably know,” she said, “that those men who came after you in Szczecin were a Black Star merc squad. Very bad news. Someone out there paid them a lot of money to take you, and they aren’t the kind to care about collateral damage. Clint killed them before they could try to grab you.” She stood, picking up her computer. “The apartment’s all locked down and the alarm is set. Kill the lights before you turn in. We’ll see you in the morning.”

She walked past him and back into the bedroom, leaving Bruce alone and feeling a little ashamed, because Song was right. Just for those few crucial seconds, he had meant to throw Barton’s friendliness back in his face. _You’re a trained killer who was stalking me through Europe and now you want to be buddies? Really?_

It had been a very short-lived impulse, but it had been enough. And Bruce knew better. Other people could be ruled by emotional impulses, but he couldn’t. The Other Guy made sure of that.

Maybe he’d been on his own too long, all those years on the run, on the fringes of society. Yeah, he’d had friends—well, friendly acquaintances. But out of necessity, those friendships had been very superficial and temporary. Maybe he didn’t know how to have actual friends anymore. Maybe Tony was just a fluke.

Bruce sighed, getting up and turning out the lights. This whole _having a team_ thing was complicated.

*****

_June 15, 2012_  
 _Newark, New Jersey_

The next morning, after only a quasi-restless night, River woke to find the other side of the bed already empty. She followed low voices out into the main room and found Clint and Banner at the kitchen table discussing the Mets chances of making the playoffs. Clint looked up as River emerged from the bedroom.

“Hey. Pull up a chair. Bruce went out and picked up breakfast,” he said, nodding to a large bag of bagels on the kitchen table.

River could hear the underlying message in the words: _We’re cool._ She didn’t know what had been said between the two of them, but fences had clearly been mended. Which was good. The fewer distractions they had on mission—even a mission as dull as this one was shaping up to be—the better.

River made herself a cup of tea, joined Clint and Banner at the table, and helped herself to a blueberry bagel. It didn’t really surprise her that last night’s minor falling out had already been smoothed over. At the end of the day, Banner was a man who liked to keep his surroundings peaceful. And when it came to taking offense Clint had two speeds; he was either quick to forgive or, in rarer cases, he would hold a grudge until the end of time. There was very little in between, and Banner hadn’t even come close to crossing into “lifelong grudge” territory. He’d just managed to poke a sensitive spot was all.

Banner’s assumption—that the only possible reason Clint would have been sent after him was to kill him—wasn’t an uncommon reaction. It was just something that happened when people knew that the word assassin figured heavily into your job description. Some people (including some SHIELD agents who, in River’s opinion, ought to know better) assumed that because Clint and River were killers, killing was all they were capable of and all they were good for. They considered assassins to be mindless weapons, nothing more.

This attitude didn’t bother River so much for herself. It really bothered Clint though, and therefore it bothered River on his behalf. (Protectiveness cut both ways in their relationship.) Clint was more than just a bow or a gun to be aimed in whatever direction SHIELD chose. He was intelligent, loyal, and good-hearted, and she hoped that the rest of their new team had the sense not to overlook those qualities.

“So, are you ready for your big undercover debut, Dr. Banner?” she asked.

“As I’m ever going to get,” Banner replied. He even managed to sound halfway upbeat about it.

River nodded. “Any news from base?” she asked Clint.

“No. No new intel,” Clint said. “We’re to proceed as planned. Rogers and Stark should be at the hospital by 1000 hours.”

Which meant that they were to get there between 0900 and 0930. Time to get a move on.

As a precaution, they’d decided to stagger their arrivals. Clint left first, carrying a duffle bag containing his disguise (nondescript nurse’s scrubs) and their equipment. 

“See you at the rendezvous point,” he said.

“See you there.” River leaned up and gave him a quick kiss, remembering a half-second too late that there was a third party present. (A third party who wasn’t Phil, who was immune to public displays of affection between his agents by now.) But Banner had his nose buried in this briefing packet, doing a quite good job of pretending that he hadn’t noticed.

River did her final prep. She was already wearing the fitted black trousers from her combat uniform and a long-sleeved grey shirt. She pulled pink nurse’s scrubs on over her clothes and sat down on the sofa to put on sneakers. She wasn’t packing any weapons on her person on this mission; it was a hospital and, god willing, this would be mostly recon. If she needed a weapon, she could always improvise. Clint was packing their guns and his collapsible bow and quiver in his backpack, just to be on the safe side. He’d stash it in an empty employee locker once he was on site.

Banner had already donned his blue scrubs and was pacing back and forth across the living room. He smiled ruefully at River.

“I guess SHIELD thought white coats would be too obvious?” he said. 

River didn’t miss the note of trepidation in his voice. She wondered if he thought she was still annoyed with him. River did tend to be harder to read than her partner. She smiled.

“Not at all. They just have the good sense to know that nurses are way cooler than doctors.” River stood. “Shall we?”

They drove to the hospital, close as it was. In the event of an emergency or some other nonsense, having a get-away car would be handy.  
x  
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about,” River said when they were stopped at a red light.

She was aware of Banner casting her a sidelong look from the passenger seat. “Okay. Sure.”

“Back on the Helicarrier when we were attacked, you tried to stop yourself from changing into the Hulk, didn’t you? You were fighting it.”

River still felt a vague flair of terror at the memory. She’d been trapped by a heavy metal rail across her ankle while, not three feet away, Banner’s body had been convulsing, grown bigger, greener, and angrier by the second.

“I tried.” Banner didn’t sound terribly happy at this turn in the conversation. “Sometimes I can force the Other Guy down. That time I couldn’t. Everything was just so--” He sighed. “I really am sorry.”

“I know. I’m not fishing for another apology,” River said. She knew that Banner was sorry that the Hulk had tried to kill her. The fact that the chase through the Helicarrier’s tunnels still figured prominently in her nightmares didn’t mean she bore him any ill will. “But later, during the Battle, you changed deliberately. You had control over it. Have you always been able to do that?”

Banner didn’t speak until the light had turned green and they were moving again.

“Not always,” he said. “I figured out I could do it. . .well, it’s a long story. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work in reverse, but yeah, I can choose to change.”

“And you can control the Hulk when you do that,” River said. The Hulk had _fought_ in the battle against the Chitauri, not just mindlessly rampaged the way he had on the Helicarrier. “So, why not change by choice every time? Why try to fight it at all?”

“Because there’s always the chance I can keep from changing,” Banner said. “It’s a gamble. I can change by choice and have control, or I can try to hold it back. If I succeed, great. If I don’t. . .well, you know what happens. But if I can keep from changing, I want to. You have no idea how horrible it is to lose control of your body like that—to have it just change, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Actually, River _did_ know. Regeneration wasn’t exactly the same as Banner’s condition, but it had still never been a pleasant process. She couldn’t really explain that though, so River just nodded.

“Anyway, it shouldn’t matter today, right?” Banner said as they pulled into the hospital parking deck. “We’re just searching. We’re not expecting any trouble.”

“If there’s any trouble, Clint and I will deal with it.” As SHIELD agents, she and Clint always expected trouble on missions, even the most mundane. It was safer that way. “But you’re right. There shouldn’t be any.”

Banner actually grinned at her. “Famous last words.”

River laughed. “You’re learning fast.”

*****

Tony wondered what his dad would think if he could see him now, flying down the Newark-Jersey City Turnpike on orders from SHIELD with Captain America riding shotgun.

He’d probably be proud in a really annoyingly smug sort of way.

“You know, the whole slouching thing isn’t very heroic,” Tony said.

Rogers shot an annoyed look at him and pushed himself up slightly in the passenger seat. It still wasn’t enough to make him look comfortable. Tony knew what he was doing. They were driving straight to St. Mark’s Hospital to throw the place into an uproar so that Hawkeye and Talon could do their shadowy agent thing. Tony’s Iron Man suit was in its case in the backseat; he’d step into it once they got there. Steve didn’t have that option. He was already in uniform and was trying to remain out of the sight of passing motorists.

Tony let him ride like that for another couple of miles before he took pity and tapped a control on the dashboard, darkening the glass of the car’s windows. Steve sat up straight with a sigh of relief that he probably didn’t intend for Tony to hear.

“I don’t know why you’re trying to hide, anyway,” Tony said. “Weren’t you Mr. Public Image back in the day?”

“It was never my favorite part of the job,” Steve said.

“That’s right. You were in it for the nobility. Dad mentioned.”

“Could we _not?”_

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Tony said.

The sarcasm was a knee-jerk reflex. Tony had spent many an hour of his childhood and adolescence being bored stupid by Howard Stark’s stories about Steve Rogers, the Incomparable Hero and Paragon of Virtue. Looking back on it now, Tony could see that Howard had enjoyed reminiscing and had probably hoped that some of the morality and high-mindedness would rub off on his son. (Howard Stark’s version of taking his kid to church.)

At the time, though, Tony had felt like he’d been set up to compete with his dad’s old war buddy, which was kind of twisted in a lot of ways. And it was a competition that he was never going to win. Even as a kid Tony had been charismatic, charming, and way too smart for his own good, but he’d never come close to being saint material.

Tony heard a cough from the backseat. He glanced up at the disapproving face in the rearview mirror.

“I’d suggest that you gentlemen get this out of your systems now,” Agent Miller said. “You need to present a united and non-antagonistic front whenever you’re in public.”

Tony glanced over at Steve and smirked when Steve rolled his eyes commiseration. They might not agree on a lot of things, but when it came to Agent Miller they were on exactly the same page. The SHIELD PR representative that Fury had assigned to the Avengers was your typical ex-military, _we have no comment_ stick-up-his-ass bureaucrat. And because Iron Man and Captain America were doing an official appearance today, they were stuck with him on this mission.

“As far as the public is concerned right now, the safety of the world rests on the shoulders of the Avengers,” Agent Miller went on. Tony mentally added _officious windbag_ to the man’s list of attributes. “Any public in-fighting between you will damage public confidence. You’re a unit now. You need to act like it.”

“Thank you, Agent Miller. We understand,” Steve said curtly before Tony could comment.

Say what you would about Captain America, he could shut people down when he chose to. 

This day might not suck too badly after all.

*****

“Is that thunder?” River asked.

River, Clint, and Banner were sitting in the hospital coffee shop, waiting for Stark and Rogers to show so they could start the clock on this mission. To anyone who might glance in their direction, they would just look like three nurses taking a break and tanking up on caffeine. Clint turned to the window, craning his neck a little, looking up at the sky. He frowned at the cover of darkening clouds overhead.

“Yeah. It looks like it’s going to storm,” he said. That hadn’t been in the forecast for today. “Either that, or Thor’s about to crash the party.”

Clint wouldn’t put it past him. The god of thunder did kind of have a flair for the dramatic.

Clint was distracted from the weather conditions by a chorus of excited voices coming from the lobby. “I think they’re here.”

Captain America and Iron Man had arrived. Clint, River, and Banner followed the crowd to check out the scene (it would have looked weird for them to be completely disinterested). They kept to the back, but Clint could see Tony and Steve being greeted by a man Clint recognized as Paul Kerrigan, the hospital director. His personnel file had received extra scrutiny from SHIELD.

“The kids will be so excited,” Kerrigan was saying. “This is such a nice thing for you to do. If you gentlemen will come this way? It looks like you just beat the rain.”

River rested her hand on Clint’s arm just for a second, a silent signal: Time to get to work. Clint nodded slightly and let her and Banner move off first before he drifted after them.

“Excuse me,” he said, brushing by a security guard. Clint noted that the man didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked like he could use a shot of PetpoBismol. Hospital security probably hadn’t been planning on being crashed by two Avengers today.

*****

Druts refrained from shuddering when the human brushed by him, but only because of the unfolding horror in the lobby.

Avengers. Here. Of all the miserable luck. 

_One day. We just have one more day before we can get off of this rock._ Now they had two of the men who’d defeated the Chituari right on top of their nest egg.

Druts moved away from the crowd, tilting his head briefly to the right to activate his embedded communicator. “We have a potentially serious problem,” he said.

“We know,” Zad replied. 

“What do we do?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Zad said. “They’re here to entertain the younglings. They’re not here for us. Just stay near the cache and wait for them to leave.”

Druts grunted, but did as he was told, moving to the door to the stairwell. Down the corridor, he could see Iron Man and Captain America being ushered into an elevator. At least in their garish suits, they’d be easy to keep track of.

*****

Tony Stark was surprisingly good at interacting with kids.

When Steve and Tony arrived at the pediatric ward the place was already buzzing with excitement and several children in pajamas and hospital gowns were eagerly watching the elevators. Tony waited just long enough for Dr. Kerrigan to introduce them, then got down to work, charming St. Mark’s youngest patients.

Steve only had to watch Tony for a minute or two before he figured out the man’s secret. Tony Stark was, in a lot of ways, just a big kid himself. 

Steve was likewise surprised at his own discomfort. Sure, he’d dealt with kids before. When he’d been on his tour as Captain America the audiences had always been full of kids. Steve had signed their comic books and posed for pictures and asked rushed questions about school and their scrap metal drives and knitting projects. But he’d never spent much time actually _talking_ to children as an adult. The hospital was compounding his unease. Steve remembered very well what it had been like to be a chronically sick kid, and those weren’t happy memories. 

Still, he knew how much it would have meant to him if someone important had come to visit back in those days. So Steve firmly set that discomfort aside.

Besides, if Tony could do this, so could he.

One of the nurses, perhaps sensing his hesitation, drew him over to a girl about five or six years of age who was sitting in a nest of blankets on a hospital bed. 

“This is Calla,” the nurse whispered on their way over. “She might seem shy at first, but don’t let her fool you.”

It turned out that despite some telltale paleness and the gauze and bandaging peeking up out of the neck of her gown, Calla was lively and full of questions.

“No. I can’t fly,” Steve said. “Thor can fly. Iron Man over there? He can fly.” Steve glanced over to see Tony at the center of a group of laughing kids. “And Hawkeye can fly an airplane,” he added as an afterthought. 

He could see Calla gearing up for her follow-up question, but she was interrupted by a loud rumble of thunder. Her eyes went very wide as she turned toward the window.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Steve said. “It’s just noise. And a lot of rain.”

What had been a few sprinkles when they’d arrived was turning into a deluge. Steve smothered a smile, thinking of Agent Miller. Tony had sent him to park the car while they came up to the ward. At this rate, he was going to have to swim back.

His smile quickly faded when the floor began to shake under his feet.

*****

River was growing frustrated. Tony’s scanner was glitching.

“I don’t get this,” she muttered. She hutched over the scanner, which was designed to look like a typical smartphone. “I’ll get a good strong reading for a few seconds, and then it goes doolally and disappears.”

And forget even trying to follow the signal when they could get it. It had led them in three completely different directions so far.

“I wonder if some of the hospital equipment could be screwing up the readings,” Clint said, leaning over her shoulder.

“Maybe we can get Tony to take a look at it” Banner said, “if we can call him away without attracting any attention.”

“It might be worth a try,” River said. “We won’t get another shot like this to search. Let me try a few things first, though.”

Sure, they could come back, but they didn’t have all the time in the world on this, and the arms dealers would no doubt be on alert after Stark and Rogers’ visit today.

River, Clint, and Banner had taken a time out in the lounge on the second floor to try to troubleshoot the issue with the scanner. All the lamps had been turned on in here. It was dark outside now and the rain was pouring down. _It’s like being back in Scotland,_ River thought idly as she adjusted the scanner’s settings yet again.

While Banner offered suggestions, Clint got up and paced the length of the lounge. They had the space to themselves. Several clusters of people passed by; River could hear them talking excitedly about Stark and Rogers’s surprise pediatric drop-in. A janitor stepped in to empty the wastebaskets. He dropped one, scattering candy wrappers and paper everywhere. Clint and Banner helped him gather up the mess, then went back to their previous activities.

“River?” Clint said. 

River glanced up. Clint had moved and was standing in front of the window, looking out at the storm. He had a very odd look on his face.

“What is it?” River asked.

Clint waved to her. “Come here and look at the rain.”

River was confused, but stepped up beside him. Banner looked bemused, but stepped up to the window as well. “Do we really have time to stop and watch the weather?” he asked.

But River saw what Clint had seen, and her eyes went wide. “The rain. It’s falling _up.”_

Before any of them had a change to process what that might mean, the building began to shake violently and the windows were flooded with light.

*****

_Arlington, VA_

Life at Valerie’s house was very relaxing. Part of that was due to the fact that Valerie wouldn’t really let Phil _do_ anything at the moment other than very basic helping out around the house. Phil’s physical therapists left very specific instructions about what Phil was and was not allowed to do, and Valerie made sure he followed them to the letter.

Phil couldn’t deny, though, that the rest was nice. It was midmorning; at SHIELD he would have been at work or in training hours ago. Right now he was stretched out on the sofa in the family room with a Tom Clancy novel. Valerie’s dog, Jackson, was sprawled across his legs, snoring.

The house was dead quiet. Valerie had been working from home a lot since Phil had come to stay, but this morning she had run out to the market. Phil could tell the exact moment when she pulled into the garage. Jackson lifted his head, _woofed_ almost silently, eased down off the sofa and padded out into the kitchen. A few moments later, Phil heard Valerie enter the house.

He’d gotten used to that sound over the last several weeks, a comforting combination of footsteps and jangling keys and cloth grocery bags being deposited on the counter. Today, though, Valerie’s arrival made Phil sit straight up. Today she entered the house at a run.

“Phil!”

“Val?” Phil scrambled up off the sofa as Valerie ran into the family room, Jackson at her heels. 

“Where’s the TV remote?” she said, looking around frantically before spotting it on the coffee table.

“What’s going on?” Phil asked as Valerie switched on the television and started flipping channels. 

“I heard on the radio. . . Clint and River, where were they being sent on their mission? Newark? St. Mark’s Hospital?”

Phil’s stomach dropped like he’d just started a skydive. “What’s happened?”

Even as he asked, a _Breaking News_ report came up, complete with confused background shouting and a reporter who was trying to be heard over the din. 

“We have confirmed that there was no explosion,” the reporter said. “In fact, there is no real sign of destruction at all, except for the fact that St. Mark’s Hospital has completely disappeared.”

The camera panned to show a wide shot of the street. Phil could see a huge, empty gap amid the buildings and a deep, neatly squared-off crater in the ground. 

“Eyewitnesses say that the hospital’s disappearance was preceded by an unusual weather phenomenon,” the reporter went on. “Reports claim that a massive electrical storm seems to have formed directly over the building. Some witnesses have even reported seeing heavy rain falling _upward_ into the clouds just before there was a brilliant flash of light and the hospital vanished into thin air. Where it has gone is anyone’s guess, but after the attacks in New York just two months ago people are already asking, is this another case of alien aggression?”

“I need my phone,” Phil said.

Vacation time was over.

****

The first thing Clint did once the shock of being thrown to the floor had worn off was to get his bearings and assess his situation. He was lying in the floor. A few cautious movements told him that no bones were broken and that he probably wasn’t bleeding. He was fairly sure he’d even dodged a concussion.

The immediate second thing Clint did was assess River’s situation, turning his head and homing in on her by sheer instinct. True to form, River was already pushing herself upright. “Clint?”

“I’m okay,” Clint replied, sitting up. “Banner?”

He could see Banner in the floor on the other side of River. Banner was clutching his head, but to Clint’s relief, he didn’t see any signs of green.

“What the hell was that?” Banner groaned. “An earthquake?”

“I don’t think. . .” Clint’s eyes strayed to the lounge’s windows and whatever he was about to say flew right out of his head. “Holy shit.”

The sky outside was black, but it wasn’t the thick, cloudy black of the storm. This was the clear, cold blackness of space, and hanging above the grey horizon. . .

“That’s Earth,” River said. 

“We’re on the Moon.” Well, this was a twist Clint hadn’t seen coming. “We’re on the fucking _Moon.”_

“How?” Banner asked. 

The man’s eyes were wide, but he was still showing no signs of Hulking out. _Good. One crisis at a time,_ Clint thought.

“I have no idea. I’m--” Clint broke off when his cell phone rang. He hastily fished it out of his pocket, checked the screen, and answered. “Phil?”

“Clint? Oh, thank God.” Phil sounded like he’d been seriously considering panic, which was never a good sign. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

“We’re okay. As for where we are?” Clint looked out over the lunar landscape. “We have a Code Pandora situation.”


	3. Chapter 3

Tony Stark never wanted to experience space again.

He’d done it once. He’d flown through the wormhole over Manhattan. He knew it was only sheer dumb luck that he’d made it back home again. By rights, his frozen corpse should be drifting somewhere at the ass end of the galaxy. Despite the fact that the odds of that happing a second time were slim he’d sworn, _Never again._ Now here he was pulling an unwilling Neil Armstrong.

He was unbelievably grateful that Rogers was there with him. It was probably the only thing keeping him from losing it entirely. Tony (and his pig-headed pride) would be damned if he had an anxiety attack in front of Rogers.

“Well, Cap?” Long years of practice let Tony keep his usual sardonic drawl in place as they looked out over the lunar landscape. “Any ideas?”

“We need to find the others, figure out what’s going on,” Rogers replied. He glanced over his shoulder at the pandemonium behind them. “We’re no good here.”

The kids had freaked when. . .whatever had just happened had happened. A lot of adults were now following suit. Dr. Kerrigan and a few members of staff were trying to get everyone calmed down. The hospital’s director grabbed Tony’s arm as he and Rogers headed for the elevators. 

“Mr. Stark? Captain? What do we do?”

Right. They were Avengers. This was their job, wasn’t it?

“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Tony said. “We’re going to check it out.”

Rogers nodded approvingly at the answer. Tony desperately wanted to make a face at him, but, as Pepper would say, this was neither the time nor the place. This was the time project confidence, to present a united front.

“Let’s go, Cap.” Tony pasted on a cocky grin. “Time to save the day.”

*****

“Director?” Fury’s executive assistant, Agent Nadine Washington, stuck her head into his office. “Agent Coulson is on the line for you. He says it’s urgent.”

 _No shit,_ Fury thought. _This whole fucking day is urgent._ St. Mark’s Hospital was gone, along with its patients, its entire staff, and five-sixths of the Avengers. Coulson must have seen the news; it had hit the airways in near-record time. Agent Miller, who had been caught outside of the hospital when it had vanished, was trying to manage things on the ground.

Coulson was probably flipping out, knowing that Barton and Song had been inside the building. On one hand, Fury didn’t have time to coddle anyone at the moment. On the other hand, he owed Phil several times over. He could spare two minutes.

“Patch him through.” Fury picked up his handset, waiting for the telltale click to indicate the call had connected. “Phil, I don’t know anything right now,” he said.

“I do,” Coulson replied. “I’ve been in contact with Clint. They’re okay.” 

Nadine stuck her head in his office again to say something, but Fury quickly waved her silent. “Where are they?”

“The hospital and everyone in it has been transported to the surface of the Moon. The building is intact and, for the moment, stable. They think there must be some sort of force field up, keeping the surrounding environment habitable.” Coulson paused for a long moment, no doubt waiting for Fury to respond. “Sir, are you still there?”

“If they’re on the Moon, how were you able to establish communication?” Fury asked.

“I called him on his cell phone.”

“SHIELD cell coverage isn’t _that_ good, Phil.”

There was a beat of silence. “The Doctor swung some upgrades to our phones a while back,” Coulson admitted. “They’ll get calls pretty much anywhere. Or anytime.”

 _And that was something you didn’t think to share?_ No time to get into that right now, though. They had communication. That was what mattered.

“Speaking of the Doctor, is this one of his messes?” Fury asked. The situation seemed to have the Time Lord’s stamp all over it. 

“If it is, he hasn’t been spotted yet. River’s been trying to call him; Amy and Rory, too. She’s just getting voicemail. Whatever’s happening, sir, I think we’re on our own.”

“Perfect.” Still, Fury at least now had some information to work with. “Keep in touch with them. Keep me informed.” When he ended the call, Fury looked to Nadine and added, “If Agent Coulson calls back, put him through no matter what else is going on.”

Nadine nodded. “Governor Christie’s office is calling for you,” she said, looking apologetic.

Fury groaned. “Take a message. Better yet, route them to Public Relations and let them deal with it.”

He had a lunar rescue to figure out.

*****

“Someone is onto us,” Druts hissed.

“You’re being paranoid,” Zad said.

“Paranoid?” Druts stared at him incredulously. “Paranoid? Have you seen where we are?”

He pointed out the window at the lunar landscape. Zad had to admit the odds were good that, yes, someone was onto them. But they didn’t know anything for sure yet. It was way too early for Druts to lose his head.

Exposure wasn’t a given, but if they did something stupid now, it would be a certainty.

“It could be someone after the Avengers not us,” Zad said. “A strike against them, maybe? They’re all here except for the Asgardian.”

It had been impossible to miss Tony Stark and Captain Rogers’s arrival, but then Zad had spotted the others in a lounge on the second floor. Thanks to Carl Dalton’s memories, Zad had recognized Hawkeye and Talon right away in spite of the nurses’s scrubs they were wearing. The other man was unfamiliar, but Zad would lay odds that he was the one who went large and green when provoked.

Of course, the fact that some of the Avengers had come here undercover presented its own worries.

“Well then, fearless leader,” Druts said, “what do you suggest we--”

Druts’s voice died as a shadow crossed across the window. Zad pressed closer to the glass, looking upward to see what had blocked out the sunlight. Three massive ships, vertical upright pillars, sailed overhead and put down on the surface in front of the hospital.

“Is that. . .?”

“Judoon.” Zad swallowed. His human throat had suddenly gone very dry. “We need to gather the others and get into the bolt hole.”

*****

“What the hell are Judoon?” Bruce asked.

The Avengers stood on the lounge balcony, watching the ships land some hundred yards away from the hospital. They’d gotten an uncomfortably close look at them as they’d flown overhead; according to River, the ship design was unmistakable. 

“They’re a military police force,” Song said. “They aren’t aligned with any one planet. Several different intergalactic governments employ them to enforce their laws.”

“Mercenaries, basically,” Barton added. “I heard the Doctor call them _intergalactic thugs_ once.” 

“So, not the Marshall Dillon school of police,” Tony said.

“Not even remotely,” Song replied.

Bruce was a little impressed. Song and Barton were barely turning a hair over this. (Running all over Time and Space with the Doctor must immunize you to freaky stuff like being teleported off your home planet.) Bruce was having a hard enough time with the balcony. Song said that there must be some sort of force field around the hospital keeping the atmosphere in, but as far as Bruce’s brain was concerned they were standing outside on the Moon and should all be suffocating. 

He was fairly sure that Tony trying not to hyperventilate, but Bruce wasn’t about to draw attention to that.

“So, what are they doing here?” Steve asked. “Why take the hospital?”

“I have a theory, but you’re not going to like it,” Song replied. 

“We already don’t like this. Spill,” Tony said.

“Fine. The Judoon have no jurisdiction over Earth.” Song crossed her arms, frowning at the Judoon ships. “And while the Judoon may be brutish, single-minded, and not very bright, they are incredibly obedient to the letter of the law. That’s probably why they moved the hospital up here. Jurisdiction is fuzzier when it comes to orbital satellites.”

“Again, why are they interested in the hospital in the first place?” Steve said.

“It’s a good bet they’re looking for the same thing we are,” Clint said. When the others turned to look at him, he shrugged. “We’re here looking for a stockpile of alien weapons and our mission just happens to get interrupted by an alien police force? C’mon. It’s kind of a no-brainer.”

“I guess that explains how you thought of it, huh, Barton?” Tony said with a cocky grin. 

Bruce cringed. He knew Tony was mouthing off because he was scared, but he doubted anyone else knew that. He saw Barton’s face darken. Bruce was almost relieved to see movement among the alien ships.

“Guys? Look.”

Figures in bulky grey space suits were marching out of the center ship in two lines, heading straight for the hospital. Bruce could see ripples of orange light around them as they crossed through the force field around the building. 

“Looks like a whole squad,” Bruce said.

“A platoon,” Song corrected. Her mouth quirked. “A Judoon platoon upon the Moon.” 

Her Scottish accent drew the words out almost ridiculously. Barton grinned in amusement. Bruce suspected that had been Song’s aim.

“Looks like they’re heading for the main entrance,” Tony said. “We should take them out now, before they get in.”

“No,” Song said. “We can’t let this come down to a fight unless we’re out of options. Those ships are armed. If we attack, the Judoon will retaliate. It’s their way. We’ll get everyone in the hospital killed.”

“Well, we can’t just stand here and do nothing,” Steve said. “If we don’t fight, what do we do?”

Song watched as the marching aliens closed in on the hospital’s doors, arms folded and a contemplative look on her face.

“We need more information. Right now we don’t have enough to go on to form a plan,” she said. “Which means, Captain, it’s time for you to exercise your diplomatic skills.”

*****

“Explain to me why I’m the one doing this again?” Steve muttered.

He was standing in the center of the lobby, watching the Judoon approach through the tinted glass. They’d herded the civilians out of the immediate vicinity. Tony and Banner had taken up positions to the far left and right, half-concealed in corridors, just in case this went bad and he needed backup. Song and Barton were above and behind him, watching from the open walkway on the second floor. 

“Because, oh Captain, my Captain, you are the leader of the Avengers,” Song said quietly over the comm in his ear. “If the Judoon have been monitoring Earth news—and it’s a good bet that they have—they’ll know that. The Judoon are very rank-conscious. They’ll only bother to talk to the person they think is the highest authority. That would be you, unless you want to drag Dr. Kerrigan down out of pediatrics and make him do it.”

“Right.” Steve stood a little straighter as the doors slid open and the Judoon trooped in. Show time.

The Judoon were big, bigger than they’d looked from a distance. Steve, who wasn’t exactly on the small side, had to look up at them. They were bulky too, but that might have been partly the space suits. The helmets only had narrow visors, making it impossible to see their faces. The Judoon at the front and center had a badge on the front of its suit that the others lacked, probably a command insignia of some kind. It reached up and removed its helmet and the others followed suit.

“Are they supposed to look like a cross between the Rock and rhino?” Tony asked. 

“Yes,” Song replied. “All right, Captain. Repeat after me. . .”

“My name is Captain Steve Rogers. Per Article 59.3 of the Shadow Proclamation, you are in territory belonging to a Level 5 non-affiliated planet,” Steve said, parroting Song’s voice in his ear. “State your business here.”

The Judoon Commander looked at him with a stony expression. (Or possibly that was just how its face always looked.) It touched some sort of control at the collar of its suit and replied in voice that sounded like boulders rolling downhill.

“This structure harbors criminals. We will apprehend them.”

 _Criminals?_

Steve hoped the small delay while he repeated Song’s response wasn’t too noticeable. “This structure is the property of Earth. The Judoon have no jurisdiction over crimes on our planet.”

“The criminals are not of Earth,” the Judoon Commander replied. “The criminals are from the planet Zecralt, Caste Ilso, members of the House of Yilad. Syndicate of thieves. Five members of the House are here. They are charged with illegally scavenging and selling weapons. The sentence is ten cycles of imprisonment. We will apprehend them. You will not interfere.”

There was a long beat of silence on the comms. “Well, shit. That’s a wrinkle,” he heard Song mutter.

“They think our arms dealers are aliens?” Banner said. “What would be the odds of that?”

“Better than you might think,” Barton replied. “Seriously, you wouldn’t believe the amount of extraterrestrial shit that happens on Earth.”

“The Zecralt hide among you. They mimic other species. They are disguised as humans,” the Judoon Commander went on, oblivious to the side-conversation Steve was listening to. “Everyone in the structure must be scanned.”

“Scanned? What do you mean _scanned?”_

In response, two of the other Judoon grabbed Steve by the arms. Before he could even try to resist, the Judoon Commander held up a device and shone a red light in his face. Steve squinted against the brightness and heard a low beep. The light turned yellow.

“Human.” 

It might have been his imagination, but the Judoon Commander sounded satisfied. The other Judoon released Steve’s arms. One of them grabbed his wrist and drew a large black “X” on the back of his gloved hand.

“We will scan the rest,” the Judoon Commander said. “You are an authority here. You will help us.”

Steve automatically bristled. 

“You have no jurisdiction over anyone in this hospital, and you moved it to the Moon because you _know_ you don’t have it. If you think I’m going to help you with an illegal investigation, you have another thing coming.”

The Judoon Commander’s expression never changed (possibly it couldn’t change). It unholstered its side arm.

“Interference will not be tolerated.” The Judoon leveled the weapon at Steve’s head. “Prepare for obliteration.”

 _If that’s the way you want it._ Steve brought up his shield and was bracing himself to take the shot when Stark shoved between him and the Judoon Commander, pushing Steve back.

“Woah. Woah there, big guy,” Stark said, holding up his hands to the Judoon. “You don’t want to do that.”

Steve fought the impulse to grab Stark and pull him back. Stark was exposed; he’d shed the Iron Man suit, opting for ease of motion over armor. 

The Judoon Commander paused. “Explain.”

“Look, we’ll help you. All right? You want to scan everyone in this hospital, we’ll help,” Stark said. “People here trust us. They especially trust Rogers, here. He’s wholesome. We have conditions, though.”

Stark gave Steve a look over his shoulder that clearly said, _Not a word._

“Name your terms,” the Judoon Commander said.

“We’ll help you scan the people in the hospital and we’ll help you catch your fugitives. In return, you won’t hurt anyone here and when this is over you’ll send the building and everyone in it back to Earth. Deal?”

The Judoon Commander considered a moment. “Your terms are acceptable.”

The Commander turned to growl long strings of orders or instructions to his people. Steve grabbed Stark by the arm and turned him around.

“What the hell was that?” he asked.

“Ah, you’re welcome? _Thanks, Tony, for not letting me get my head shot off?”_ Stark brushed Steve’s hand off. “Look, this is good. This gets us all what we want.”

“We shouldn’t be making deals with these things.”

“And what’s our other option? An armed conflict? You heard Song. We’re outgunned, we have no backup, and if these things don’t get what they want they could just blow the whole building. So, they don’t technically have jurisdiction according to the Shadow Parliament, or whatever the hell Song was talking about. Would you rather cling to the moral high ground and get everyone killed?”

Steve forced himself to unclench his fist. He didn’t like this. It rankled to even consider working with the Judoon. Captain America had never been a negotiator or a compromiser. The Howling Commandos had never bothered to bargain with the bad guys; they’d just gone in and gotten the job done by whatever means were necessary. Wheeling and dealing? That was Stark’s world.

Stark also, as much as Steve hated to admit it, had a point. There were hundreds of civilians here to consider. The Avengers had effectively landed in the middle of a hostage situation.

Steve raised his hand to his comm.

“Avengers, report to the lobby,” he said. “Stark has negotiated a truce. The Judoon are here to apprehend wanted fugitives. We’ll be helping them.”

****

At a signal from Clint, River adjusted the settings on her comm, allowing them to still hear the others, but talk to each other in private.

“If they scan you, will they know what you are?” Clint asked in a low voice.

River bit her lip, raising her head slightly to look over the low wall she and Clint were crouched behind. She watched the Judoon scan and mark Rogers, no doubt ruling him out as one of their hidden fugitives. 

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure they will,” she replied.

Her Time Lord DNA stood out like a neon marquee if you were looking for genetic anomalies. Dr. Judith Levine at SHIELD Medical had labeled River as a hybrid for lack of a better term, even though they both knew that it wasn’t technically accurate. River’s parents were both human, but Amy and Rory had been running with the Doctor when River had been conceived. The spark of life that would become River Song had begun on the TARDIS in flight in the Time Vortex. 

It had been enough to change her into something a little other than human. It was why River could assimilate a foreign language in a matter of weeks. It was why she always instinctively knew the day, date, and time. It was why she was always aware of her location, down to the precise coordinates, and could navigate better than a SHIELD GPS unit. She’d even been able to regenerate until she’d sacrificed that ability. 

So, no, River wasn’t a true alien hybrid, but her genes told another story. If SHIELD Medical could scan her DNA and find the alien markers, the Judoon would have no problems whatsoever.

“What do you want to do?” Clint asked.

River knew that look in his eye. Clint didn’t like threats directed at her, even vague ones. 

“They’re looking for specific aliens. Zecralt,” River said. “The Judoon scanners can tell the difference between alien species. Even if they scanned me, they have no reason to do anything to me. But. . .there are the others to consider.”

The Avengers might be a team now, but River wasn’t ready to trust them that far yet. There were only five people in the world who knew her secret: Clint, Phil, Nick Fury, Meg Downing, and Dr. Levine. River wanted to keep it that way for the foreseeable future if she could.

“Then we keep you clear of them,” Clint said without hesitation. 

“Avengers.” Cap’s voice came over the comm. “Report to the lobby. Stark has negotiated a truce. The Judoon are here to apprehend wanted fugitives. We’ll be helping them.”

Clint sighed with deep exasperation. “Fuck, Rogers, really?”

River laid a hand on his wrist. “If the Zecralt have half of a collective brain, they’ve gone to ground. They aren’t just going to loiter in the corridors waiting for the Judoon to come along to scan them.”

“And they’re sitting on a stockpile of Chitauri weapons,” Clint added. “Do you think they’ll try for an armed stand-off?”

“It would be suicide if they did. They’d have to know that,” River said. “My gut says they’ll fall back to a safe place. Like you said, they have a stockpile of weapons in this place. It will be an area that’s secure and shielded. My bet is that if we find their cache, we’ll find them.”

“So. . .we just need to find five aliens who could be hiding anywhere in this building and are likely armed to the teeth, take them into custody, and turn them over to the Judoon so that they’ll put the hospital back,” Clint said.

“You always did like a challenge,” River replied.

Clint snorted in amusement and took one more peek over the wall. 

“All right. Let’s put some distance between us and the search parties. Then we’ll call Phil and let him know what’s going on.”

*****

Bruce was feeling a little out of place.

At Rogers’s order Bruce had come out to join him and Tony in the center of the lobby. The Judoon had shone a bright red light in his face, declared him human, and then moved off to confer among themselves in their own language. Banner kept expecting Barton and Song to come join the party any minute. 

But after five minutes they still hadn’t shown. _Call for the Avengers? Get Captain America, Iron Man, and a random guy in scrubs,_ Bruce thought.

“We seem to be missing a couple of people,” Tony said quietly.

Rogers glanced over at the Judoon, but they weren’t paying much attention to the three humans. They seemed to be setting up some sort of command post. They didn’t seem concerned about the Avengers one way or the other. That was a good thing, in Bruce’s opinion. Better to be ignored than perceived as a threat. Rogers touched his comm.

“Hawkeye. Talon. What’s your status?” he asked.

There was a long beat of muted white noise before Song’s voice came through. “We’re working a different angle,” she said. “We’ll keep you apprised.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal we made,” Tony said, scratching his temple to shield his face from the Judoon. “I get the feeling these guys don’t take breach-of-contract very well.”

“You said the Avengers would help them,” Barton replied. “Did you say how _many_ Avengers?”

Rogers smothered a grin. Tony glared at him as he answered, “No, I never gave them a number.”

“Then so long as you guys keep your traps shut, they won’t even know we’re missing. Keep the Judoon busy and keep them off us.”

“While you two do what, exactly?” Bruce asked.

“What we do best,” Song said. 

Tony looked like he was about to start demanding specifics. Bruce nudged his arm at movement from their “allies.”

“Head’s up,” Bruce said. “They’re coming this way.”

The Judoon trooped over to them, the Commander at the center, looming over Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

“We will begin the search. You will assist,” the Commander barked. Then he marched off, no doubt expecting them to follow.

“You heard the man. . .thing,” Tony said. “Let’s get this over with, and hope our SHIELD contingent doesn’t fuck everything up.”


	4. Chapter 4

Clint and River took a quick detour down to the men’s employee locker room to grab Clint’s duffle bag containing their weapons, then headed upstairs, coming out near Radiology. 

The situation was much the same up here as it was below: lots of frightened people congregating in the hallways. The calmer ones were trying to comfort the frightened ones. Clint didn’t pay much attention to them beyond a cursory look. He was sympathetic, but he and River had work to do.

The first thing they did was raid a deserted nurse’s station. “Success!” River said, holding up a black Sharpie. “Give me your hand.”

Clint held out his hand so that River could draw a large black X on the back of it. “Do you really think this will fool the Judoon if they catch us?” he asked.

“Maybe,” River said, drawing an X on her own hand. “Maybe not. Even the Judoon are only so thick, but it’s worth a shot.” She capped the marker and stuck it in the pocket of her scrubs. “We should find a quiet spot to call this in to Phil.”

It only took a couple of tries to find an empty office. River threw the lock while Clint dialed Phil. If a protocol for a situation like this existed, it would probably stipulate that they should call Fury directly. However, a protocol for a situation like this didn’t exist, so Clint figured he could do as he damn well pleased. Phil could pass any relevant information on to Fury.

Phil answered before the second ring. “Clint? Are you okay? What’s your status?”

“We’re both all right for now.” Clint put Phil on speaker quickly gave the sit-rep. “The good news is that with Roger, Stark, and Banner escorting the Judoon, people should take the whole scanning thing more calmly. They’ll make sure no one gets manhandled in the process.”

“No doubt,” Phil replied. “What about your plan for finding the Zecralt? Do you two have any tricks up your sleeves?”

“We think our best bet is finding the weapons cache,” River said. “If it’s stayed so well-hidden for weeks, it would be the logical place for them to fall back to. We still have Stark’s scanner. We can use that.”

“I thought the scanner wasn’t working?”

“It wasn’t, not well, but that was before we knew that our arms dealers are aliens,” River said. “They won’t be using Earth tech to hide the weapons. That explains why Stark’s scanner was doing such a shoddy job. The Zecralt will be using energy shielding, perceptions filters, maybe even holograms. Now that we can factor in that information, the scanner should be more useful.”

“And when you find them?”

“We’ll strike hard and fast,” Clint said 

He heard Phil blow out a heavy breath. “All right. I’ll update Fury. Be careful.”

“Copy that.”

They took a minute to do a quick weapons check before leaving the privacy of the office. River held up her scanner.

“Fancy a spot of hunting?” she asked.

“With you? Always,” Clint replied with a grin. “Let’s go.”

*****

Coulson had called in reports to Fury from some weird places during the course of his SHIELD career. The highlight was probably the time he’d called in while hiding at the center of a small herd of sleeping camels in the Moroccan countryside while an inquisitive calf kept trying to eat the laces of his boots. (Coulson had had to toss most of the clothes he’d worn on that mission. Camel smell didn’t wash out.)

Calling in from the recliner in Valerie’s living room was a whole new level of strange, especially with Val keeping one concerned eye on him the whole time. Phil’s agitated pacing had left him feeling a little winded. Phil didn’t want to seem ungrateful because he knew that he should be dead after what Loki had done to him, but _damn_ he was ready for the recovery process to be complete.

“Barton and Song think this plan will work?” Fury asked.

“It sounds like the best option they have, sir,” Phil said. “SHIELD doesn’t have any way to get hundreds of people safely off the Moon. No agency on the planet has resources like that. They’ll need the Judoon’s cooperation to get everyone home. Flushing out the Zecralt is apparently the fastest way to do that.”

Sometimes you actually did have to negotiate with the terrorists.

His report made, Phil pushed himself out of the recliner just long enough to relocate to the couch next to Valerie. Once he’d ended his call, she’d unmuted the TV. Every major station was running coverage of the unnatural developments in Newark.

“Where did SHIELD dig up this guy?” Valerie said as Phil sat down beside her.

Agent Miller from the SHIELD Public Relations division was on screen being interviewed by the press. If _interviewed_ was the right word.

“Seriously, does he know any phrases other than _no comment?”_ Valerie asked.

Phil flinched as Agent Miller delivered yet another short, clipped answer to one of the journalists. “Agent Miller’s just. . .old-school,” he said.

“That’s one word for it.” Valerie’s tone was dry enough to desiccate a watermelon. 

“He is kind of limited in what he can say.” Phil felt compelled to stick up for SHIELD protocol if not for Agent Miller. “Assuming he’s been informed of what’s really happened, he can’t just tell them that the hospital is on the Moon. People will panic.”

“People are already panicked.” Valerie shook her head. “Does SHIELD really have no idea how terrified regular people were by New York? Aliens attacked us. Going through airport security is enough to make us feel vulnerable. Aliens are a whole new level of circumstances we can’t control. And then something like this happens?” Valerie gestured to television. “People need reassurance. You can be reassuring without giving out classified information. _No comment_ is not reassuring.”

Phil didn’t argue, mostly because there was nothing in what Valerie said that he could argue with. He held up his phone instead.

“Do you want me to patch you through to the PR division? You can give them some pointers.”

“My consulting hours are on Wednesdays. And I need coffee. You?” Valerie asked, standing up.

“Please.”

*****

“These are the Judoon. They’re looking for some alien fugitives. They just need to scan you to confirm that you’re human. It only takes a second. No, it doesn’t hurt. Look, they’ve done me too. See? You’re done. Pretty soon this will be over and we can all go home.”

As much as Steve hated this whole _collaborating with the enemy_ business, he couldn’t deny the fact that the scanning process was going smoothly. The Judoon were efficient and, all things considered, not hostile or abusive. Steve wouldn’t go so far as to say that people were no longer afraid, but they were going along with this. They were looking to him and Tony and Bruce for reassurance and it seemed to be working. 

Barton and Song were back on comms, at least intermittently. They keep popping on to ask Stark questions about the inner workings of the scanner he’d devised to hunt for the Chitauri weapons. Every time they did, Stark pulled a _you’ve got to be kidding me face,_ but muttered an answer with his face carefully turned away from the Judoon. Steve thought that he probably didn’t need to bother. The Judoon were paying scant attention to the three Avengers. Steve had a feeling they could be shouting over their comms to their wayward teammates and, so long as it didn’t interfere with their scanning, the Judoon wouldn’t give a damn.

The fifth time they came on with questions, Stark turned bodily away from the Judoon, which left him facing Steve and Bruce.

“Seriously, what the fuck are you two doing to my equipment?” he hissed. “What the hell is a perception filter?”

“It’s about what it sounds like. It’s a filter that alters perceptions.” Steve noted that Song’s Scottish accent got thicker when she was annoyed. “Look, we tried scanning for the Chitauri energy signature and it was a bust. The Zecralt are pulling out all of the stops to shield their bolt hole. We need to scan for the energy signatures they’re using to mask the Chitauri signatures. Now would you just give me the numbers for this setting?”

Stark rattled off the numbers in a clipped voice, then pinned Steve with a look that seemed to indicate that his bad mood was all Steve’s fault.

“Aren’t you supposed to have some control over them? _Captain?”_

Steve counted to ten and refused to rise to the bait. He knew that he shouldn’t have let Song and Barton slide on going off on their own. He should have ordered them in no uncertain terms to get their asses down to the lobby to help with the scanning. He’d been too busy being satisfied that he wasn’t the only one who objected to Stark’s plan to help the Judoon, so he’d let them get away with it.

A team couldn’t work that way. Steve knew that they were all capable of working together, and working well. That was how they’d saved New York. They’d had to move fast then, and they’d all been drawn together over Agent Coulson’s supposed death. There had been no room for personality to get in the way.

Song and Barton had come into the Avengers with an _us against the world_ mentality. Steve could have guessed that just from reading their files. Assuming they all got out of this alive, he was going to have to address that.

Surprisingly, Banner spoke up before Steve could.

“Tony, they’re just trying to help. And they’re trained for this, between SHIELD and the Doctor. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

“You’re taking their side? One sleepover and you guys are best friends now?”

Banner shrugged, seemingly unperturbed. “I came away with an idea of how they work, yeah. We should trust them.”

“You want to trust a couple of professional assassins to end a standoff without getting a bunch of people killed?” Stark asked.

“We heard that,” Barton said over the comms.

“Guys,” Steve said.

The Judoon Commander was stomping over to them. “This floor is clear. We shall proceed.” He (she?) turned and marched off again, clearly expecting them to follow.

“You heard him,” Stark said. “Onward and upward.”

*****

“Oh, yes. This is a vast improvement,” River said.

The fast and dirty tweaks they’d made to Stark’s scanner were yielding results. Instead of scattered shreds of energy readings that bounced all over the place and didn’t seem to lead anywhere, they were picking up a steady signal. It’s wasn’t perfect. It glitched and jumped every handful of seconds, but it always came back. 

“Which way?” Clint said, peering at the scanner over her shoulder.

River cocked her head, studying the readings for a moment. “One level up, I think,” she said. “And then a bit to the southeast.”

“Okay. Let’s go check it out.”

They jogged up another flight of stairs and followed the scanner’s readings down the corridor. River held up a hand to stop Clint when she saw the energy reading start to spike. When Clint gave her a quizzical look, she laid one finger to her lips and pointed to an open door up ahead on the right.

The Zecralts’ hiding place was in that room.

River put the scanner away in her pocket. With an unspoken agreement born of long years of partnership and dozens of missions together, River tucked herself tightly against Clint’s side. Clint, in turn, wrapped his arms around her and they walked, slowly and a bit awkwardly, down the corridor past the doorway. To anyone in the room, they would just look like a concerned nurse walking his shell-shocked coworker down the hallway.

As they went by River carefully peeked around Clint to look into the room. She knew that he’d be quickly checking out the lay of the land as well. The room that the scanner had pointed them to was a break room of some sort. It was spare and lit by fluorescent lights. There was a row of vending machines down each side and three cheap plastic tables with matching chairs in a row down the middle. It looked deserted.

They shuffled along until they were several feet past the doorway and probably out of earshot. “Closer look?” Clint murmured in River’s ear. She nodded and they turned and doubled back. 

“Come on. Let’s sit you down and get you a soda,” Clint said as he guided her into the break room. He was back to playing the part. Just because they couldn’t see anyone didn’t mean that no one was watching. “A little caffeine, a little sugar. You’ll feel a lot better, okay?”

“Okay,” River said in a deliberately small voice that was nothing at all like her usual speech. She let Clint guide her into a chair, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to look as helpless as possible.

It was here, the hiding place. River and Clint both knew what perception filters felt like. River had been trained in their detection as a child. Clint had picked it up more recently, thanks to their years running with the Doctor. River could feel her mind and attention wanting to slide over this place, like water flowing over glass. If they hadn’t been actively looking, if they hadn’t known what they were looking they probably would have missed this room.

“So, soda,” Clint said, fumbling in his pockets for change as he walked over to the bank of vending machines on the left wall. “Huh. Can you believe it? They’re all out of order.”

“What are the odds of that?” River replied. 

Clint cocked an eyebrow at her as he turned around and went to the machines on the other side of the room. He knew as well as she did that what they were looking for was behind that wall of vending machines. River looked at the hand-lettered “Out of Order” signs while Clint fed coins into one of the machines behind her and brought her a can of Coke.

They’d found their prey. Now they just had to figure out how to get to it.

*****

Zad watched Hawkeye and Talon over the video monitor while his cohorts had a frantic, whispered argument about whether they should surrender themselves, come out shooting, or just curl up in balls and pretend that this whole day wasn’t happening.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Zad said irritably.

“We don’t have audio. There’s nothing for you to listen to,” Druts snapped. 

“I’m not listening. I’m thinking.”

“What is there to think about?” Druts gestured at the video feed. “There are two Avengers out there, and I’m fairly sure they aren’t there because they want that horrible fizzy sugar syrup the humans are so fond of.”

 _The_ right _two Avengers,_ Zad thought, and it wasn’t just Carl Dalton’s memories of the Battle of New York talking. Captain America and Iron Man were busy helping the Judoon. Hawkeye and Talon, for whatever reason, weren’t.

Zad began punching in a code on the keypad by the door.

“Zad? What are you doing?”

“Trust me. I have an idea.”

*****

One moment Clint was contemplating how they could possibly crack into the Zecralt bolt hole without just getting shot in the face for their troubles. The next moment, there was a loud, hydraulic hiss and the middle vending machine started to swing outward. Clint and River scrambled up from their table, drew their weapons, and took up positions in the hall on either side of the doorway.

“So much for getting the drop on them,” Clint said.

“Do you think we should call for backup?” River asked.

That was a question that Clint and River didn’t have to entertain all that often. Most of the time their only back-up consisted of Phil, not three superheroes a few floors away. It wasn’t something Clint was used to having to factor in.

He missed it just being him and River.

“I think. . .wait. Look.”

A single man stepped out of the door in the vending machines. He was holding his hands high overhead. 

_Shit,_ Clint thought. It was the janitor he and Banner held helped down in the lounge.

“That’s far enough,” Clint said unnecessarily. This guy looked like the last thing in the world he was planning to do was charge them. The janitor nodded, standing stock still and raising his hands a little higher.

“My name is Zad of the Trade House Yilad,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re Hawkeye and Talon of the Avengers.”

Clint risked a quick glance at River, who looked as befuddled as he felt. How the hell did this guy know that?

“I need to talk to you,” Zad of the Trade House Yilad went on. “I think I have a solution to our present predicament that will benefit all of us.”

****

“The device the Judoon used to move the hospital is called an H2O scoop,” Zad said. “See the box with the three green lights? That’s it.”

River and Clint had let Zad lead them to a window overlooking the Judoons’ equipment on the lunar surface. River could see the particular bit he was pointing to easily enough.

“The scoops are fairly old-fashioned technology,” Zad continued. “But they’re very reliable and last forever. Like. . .like Tupperware.”

River saw Clint fight down a laugh.

“I’ve heard of H2O scoops,” River said. “That explains our mysterious downpour earlier.”

“The scoop contains all of the transfer data,” Zad said. “If we can reverse the transfer, we can send the hospital and everyone in it back to Earth. The Judoon will be in violation of their jurisdiction, and they won’t risk a second public transfer. The Shadow Proclamation likes to play by the rules and they’re already risking attracting the attention of. . .certain concerned parties.”

River was tempted to ask if any of those “certain concerned parties” favored bow ties.

“Okay. I don’t hate this idea,” Clint said. “But explain to me why this is a better plan than us turning you over to the Judoon and letting _them_ send us home.”

“Because three members of my illustrious cohort are prepared to fight rather than be arrested.” Zad sounded grim. “They’d die in the attempt, no doubt, but not before doing a considerable amount of damage, some of it to the people here. And the Judoon will respond in kind. I don’t think either of you want that.”

River raised an eyebrow at Clint. He had them there.

“Fair enough,” Clint said.

“Do you actually know how to reverse the H2O scoop?” River asked Zad.

“One of the other members of my cohort does,” he said. “Abea. She’s a bit of a rebel. She spent three cycles at Opex Technological University before coming home to join the Trade House.”

River contemplated the pile of equipment outside. “There’s no real cover out there,” she said. “Can she do what she needs to do without the Judoon spotting her?”

“It would be safer if we could bring the scoop inside,” Zad said. “The problem is that it’s heavy. Abea says, to use Earth weight measures, they usually run about two thousand pounds.”

“So, a little over three hundred pounds in the Moon’s gravity,” Clint said.

River had long ago stopped asking how Clint knew things like that off the top of his head. She knew how. Clint was the king of random knowledge. He loved learning new things and his retention rate was scary even by her standards. 

“Three hundred pounds. With the suit, Stark could carry that easily,” she said. 

Clint caught her eye and inclined his head slightly to the far side of the room. “Don’t go anywhere,” River told Zad as she and Clint moved off to confer.

“What do you think?” Clint asked quietly.

“If he’s playing us, he’s being needlessly elaborate about it,” River said. “He could have stayed locked up with the others. He could have come out with a weapon. He didn’t. He seems interested in avoiding an armed confrontation.”

Clint nodded in agreement. “This plan to reverse the transfer sounds solid. And it sounds like the fastest option we’ve got. Have you noticed the change in the air?”

“It’s starting to get thin,” River said. “It reminds me of that mission in the Alps.”

The H2O scoop had captured the atmosphere around the hospital and the force field was keeping it contained, but the Judoon’s equipment wasn’t generating additional oxygen. There was a limited amount of air and a lot of people needed to breathe it. 

“Think that’ll cause the Judoon to get a move on?” Clint asked.

“Not likely,” River said. “The Judoon can survive on minimal oxygen. There’s at least one advantage to having a brain the size of a satsuma.”

“So, the faster we can get everyone out of here, the better.”

“I’d say so, yes.”

“We just need to make sure that the Judoon don’t see Stark going for the scoop. That could be tricky,” Clint said.

“About that,” River replied. “I have an idea.”

When she told him what she had in mind, Clint looked uncertain for the first time since this mission had started. “Are you sure? I thought you didn’t want. . .”

“I don’t,” River said. “But we need the Judoon fully focused on something else while the scoop is retrieved, and if I can give them a good scare, all the better. Besides, I can do damage control afterward.” River smiled a bit grimly. “Greater good, right?”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“Right. Zad?” Clint raised his voice, turning back to the alien. “You’ve got a deal. Get your engineer out here.” He tapped his comm on again. “Guys? Listen up. We have a new plan.”


	5. Chapter 5

“That’s it. Just breathe,” Bruce said. 

The middle-aged woman ( _Constance,_ she’d said her name was) nodded as she pressed the oxygen mask a little tighter over her face. She’d nearly fainted after the Judoon had scanned her, and Bruce didn’t think it was just out of fright.

“How is she?” 

Steve had come to stand at Bruce’s shoulder and was looking at him like he was waiting for a clinical diagnosis. One of these days, Bruce thought, he was just going to cave to the inevitable and go get the M.D. that everyone assumed he had. He moved aside with relief when one of St. Mark’s nurses arrived to take over.

“She just got a little short of breath,” Bruce said. “And in case you haven’t noticed, she’s not the only one.”

It seemed like every fourth or fifth person was starting to show signs of inadequate oxygenation. Some were complaining of dizziness. Some were just rubbing their foreheads or sitting on the floor, heads resting on their knees. 

“Not a lot of fresh air on the Moon,” Tony said, coming over to join them. “We’ll just have to count on the bottled stuff to hold out until we get this done.”

“Guys?” After such a long stretch of radio silence all three of them started at Barton’s voice over their comms. “Listen up. We have a new plan.”

Bruce automatically glanced toward the Judoon, but they were halfway up the corridor, presumably way out of earshot.

“What do you mean _you have a new plan?”_ Steve sounded more than a little like he was ready to strangle someone.

“Talon and I are with two of the Zecralt,” Barton said.

“Great. Kick their asses, slap them in restraints, and bring them down here,” Tony said. 

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Barton replied.

“The other Zecralt are still in their bolt hole, and they aren’t inclined to surrender,” Song added. “We need to resolve this situation. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but air is starting to become an issue.”

“We had noticed, actually,” Bruce said, glancing down at Constance. Fortunately, she was starting to look a little healthier. 

“Right. So, like I said, new plan,” Barton said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. . .”

The plan Barton outlined didn’t sound all that crazy to Bruce. (They were already on the Moon. How more insane could things possibly get?) But Tony and Steve both looked incredulous.

“Seriously? We’re letting the sniper steer the ship?” Tony asked Steve.

“Barton,” Steve said, “I appreciate the initiative, but we’ve already got the strategy handled.”

It sounded a lot more dismissive than Steve probably intended. And coming on top of Tony’s jabs on this mission, Bruce thought, Barton’s reaction wasn’t wholly out of left field.

“You’ve got the strategy handled?” Barton’s usual easygoing tone had been replaced by something as hard, sharp, and potentially explosive as one of his arrowheads. “Okay. Tell you what, _Captain,_ so long as we’re talking strategy, there’s something I’ve always wondered about. When you were sitting in the cockpit of that Hydra plane, exactly what stroke of strategic genius was it that led to crashing in the ocean?”

Barton could have applied a live cattle prod to Rogers and not gotten such a stunned look. 

“I mean, me? I probably would have started with trying to turn the plane around,” Barton continued. “If that didn’t work I might have gone for ditching the bombs in the ocean. Or even just dragging them away from the bomb bay doors so they couldn’t be dropped. Hell, you have super strength, right? Or I would have taken ten fucking seconds to relay my coordinates and tried to do a soft landing in the water. I know I’m not _the star-spangled man with the plan,_ but taking a suicide dive into the North Atlantic wouldn’t have been my opening gambit.” 

There was a stretch of silence during which Bruce half-expected to see smoke start curling out of Steve’s comm. 

“Too soon?” Barton added.

“You’ve made your point,” Steve said. 

“Good,” Barton replied. “This is the plan. This is what we’re doing. Stark, get your suit and get your ass down to the maintenance room on the first floor. We’ll meet you there. Rogers and Banner, wait for our signal.”

There was a long beat of awkward silence. Bruce kept his mouth shut, casting cautious looks at Steve and Tony.

“Well. I guess I’m going to head downstairs now,” Tony said. 

Steve nodded. “Be careful.”

Bruce wondered if he was talking about the plan or the SHIELD agents. 

He knew which one he’d pick.

*****

“You realize this is a travesty,” Tony said.

“Yeah, well, you say _travesty,_ we say _camouflage,”_ Barton said. “Hold your arms up.”

Tony did as he was told. Barton and Song were circling him, hastily slapping a sloppy layer of grey paint over the distinctive red and gold of the Iron Man suit. Tony tried not to feel physically pained. The paint wouldn’t affect the mechanics at all, but it was going to be a bitch to get it out of all of the suit’s joints and creases. 

“How did you even know that they had grey paint down here?”

“Because every maintenance department has a five-gallon bucket of shit grey paint stashed somewhere.” Barton looked up from his work with a grin that was completely at odds with his little tirade against Cap a few minutes ago. “It’s like a rule.”

“Are you clear on your part of the plan?” Song asked. Unlike Barton, she still seemed quietly pissed off. Clearly, she didn’t care for people casting aspersions on lover boy’s intelligence. 

Spies with a healthy relationship. Who knew?

“I go for a Moon walk. I grab the box with the three green lights. I bring it inside through the coffee shop entrance and one of our _new_ alien friends uses it to send us back Earthside.”

Tony glanced doubtfully over at the two Zecralt. When they had picked their human disguises, they had definitely gone for unobtrusive: a janitor and a cafeteria worker.

“Which one of you is the engineer?” Tony asked. 

The cafeteria worker raised her hand. “Abea. I’m not an engineer, but I’ve had schooling.”

“Enough so that she knows her way around the technology,” Song added.

Which was more than Tony could say for himself. He would have been keen on seeing the inner workings of the H2O scoop if it weren’t for certain extenuating circumstances.

“You do know that if the Judoon get wind of what we’re doing, they might decide to just blow the whole hospital,” he said quietly to Song and Barton.

“We got the memo,” Barton said. “That’s why you’re not going to get caught.”

“Because Song here is going to distract the Judoon.” Tony frowned at Song. She and Barton had kind of glossed over this part of the plan. “You’re going to do that how, exactly?”

“You don’t need to worry about that part,” Song said. “We’ve got it covered. The Judoon won’t be paying any attention to what’s going on outside. Now, close your faceplate.” Song held up her paint brush. “I need to get your mask.”

Tony obliged and hoped that Song wasn’t seriously overestimating her powers of magnetism.

*****

Steve and Banner were waiting in the corridor near the gift shop to implement Phase 2 of Barton’s plan.

Steve leaned carefully around the corner to assess the situation in the lobby. The Judoon Commander was still there at the makeshift command station with several of the foot soldiers. Steve could hear them barking into communicators in their own language. He hoped that the search of the upper levels of the hospital was proceeding peacefully without him, Banner, and Stark there to supervise. 

He wondered if the other Judoon had even noticed (or cared about) their absence.

“Any idea what Song and Barton have up their sleeves?” Steve asked Banner.

Song had said that she could keep the Judoon distracted for several minutes while Stark retrieved the H2O scoop and brought it inside. Neither she nor Barton had said how.

Banner shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “I think maybe--”

He was interrupted by the sound of soft, jogging footsteps closing in on them. Barton and Song came around the corner a moment later. 

“Oh, good. You’re here,” Barton said.

“As instructed,” Steve said dryly. 

Now was not the time to get into what had gone down over the comms. Honestly, Steve thought, there might never be a time. A lot of it might depend on how this plan of Barton’s played out.

“Stark’s in place,” Song said. She sounded brusque and businesslike. “Are you both ready?”

“I guess so,” Banner said. “But. . .are you guys _sure_ this is a good idea?”

“Have you got our backs?” Barton asked.

“Of course,” Banner replied immediately. 

Barton turned to Steve. There was a challenging look in his eyes, but it was devoid of any trace of hostility or combativeness. It almost put Steve in mind of Col. Phillips. _Time to step up to the plate, soldier. What are you going to do?_

“Yes,” Steve said. “I’ve got your back.”

A team that fell apart over one small disagreement wasn’t a team worth preserving.

“Good,” Song said. “Clint and Bruce will go first. Captain, you and I will go second. Play it up. We need to make a scene.”  


Bruce nodded, took hold of Clint by the upper arm, and started leading him toward the lobby. Steve found himself hesitating for a moment before he laid a hand on Song. She raised an impatient eyebrow at him.  


“Yes?”  


“I know this isn’t the greatest time to ask this, but are we okay?” Steve asked.  


Song’s poker face would have given old Monty a run for his money back in the day. It was probably a great asset in the field. Steve just wished it wasn’t currently aimed at him. Still, at the question, Song let it slip a bit and the corner of her mouth turned up for half a second.  


“I trust you to look out for us, and you can trust us to do the same for you,” Song said. As Steve took hold of her arm she added in a mutter that was clearly pitched to be overheard. “You dobber.”  


Steve didn’t know what a _dobber_ was, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment.  


Steve marched Song out into the lobby, following Banner and Barton. “Commander!” he called loudly.  


The Judoon Commander turned at the sound of his voice. His throng of foot soldiers followed suit.  


“We found these two hiding,” Steve said, giving Song a shake by the arm. (Hey, she’d said to play this up.) “We think they’re some of the ones you’re looking for. They marked up their own hands so that the search parties wouldn’t scan them.”

There were at least a dozen holes that could be poked into this explanation, but the Judoon took it at face value. As Steve and Banner escorted their “prisoners” into the center of the lobby, the Judoon Commander took a scanner from one of his underlings and stomped up to Barton. 

“Stark,” Steve said quietly, “go now.”

“Copy,” Stark replied over the comm. “Keep them busy.”

The Judoon Commander scanned Barton. The light on the scanner turned yellow and it emitted the by now very familiar beep.

“Human,” the Commander barked. 

Steve wondered if it was his imagination or if the Judoon sounded kind of disgusted. Banner quickly pulled Barton to the side and out of the way. Steve led Song forward. He loosened his grip on her arm slightly. Maybe her plan was to start a fight?

But no, that didn’t seem to be the case. Song stood quietly while the Judoon Commander scanned her. 

The light from the scanner turned blue and a loud buzz cut through the lobby.

“Not human.”

Steve turned a startled look on Song, just in time to see a small, triumphant smile cross her face.

*****

Tony missed the sound of Jarvis’s voice in his ear.

When they got back home (when, not if) he was going to have to work on extending Jarvis’s range. Silly him, up until a couple of months ago he never thought he’d need a signal that extended beyond Earth’s orbit. Tony thought he should perhaps feel slightly ashamed of himself for thinking so small.

He could hear his teammates though, and that was something. 

Tony tried hard not to look up as he walked across the surface of the Moon. Looking up threatened to bring on bad flashbacks of falling through the void. Instead, he kept his eyes on the prize: the H2O scoop with its three green lights.

He also kept a wary eye on the Judoon ships, even though Song and the Zecralt had agreed that, as long as he was careful, the Judoon wouldn’t notice him. They wouldn’t be looking for any of the humans to go for a stroll, and they wouldn’t be keeping an eye on their equipment. Being careful meant walking instead of using the suit’s thrusters.

“Figures,” Tony muttered. The thrusters could get him there and back with the scoop in under a minute. Instead he had to do this the slow way.

But he got there without incident. He got the H2O scoop unhooked with no issues. He held his breath the entire way back to the hospital, waiting to be hit in the back by a death ray at any moment. He almost couldn’t believe he’d made it when he stumbled through the coffee shop’s street door with his cargo.

The two Zecralt, Zad and Abea, had already shoved all the furniture to one side. Tony set the H2O scoop down carefully in the middle of the floor and retracted his faceplate with a sigh of relief. He glanced toward the counter and saw two coffee shop employees huddled against the back wall.

“Hi,” Tony said, dredging up some cheer and a wave. “Sorry about the mess. We’ll put everything back.”

Abea was already prying the access panel off the scoop. _Eager is good._ Tony would personally tidy up the entire hospital if they got home in one piece.

*****

River shook herself free of Steve’s grip. She could see Clint and Banner out of the corner of her eye. Banner’s mouth was hanging open slightly. Clint just gave her an encouraging nod. River didn’t dare spare them more than the briefest of glances. She kept her eyes on the Judoon Commander, stepping up to him with an air of fearless unconcern. She’d thought very carefully about how she was going to play this.

“Well, Commander, it seems as if you and I have something in common,” she said.

The Judoon Commander was already holding out his hand for a larger, more intricate looking device that one of his underlings passed to him. Another scanner, River was sure. The Judoon were looking for aliens among the humans, but they were looking for a particular race of aliens: the Zecralt. 

Their scan told them that River wasn’t human. Now they’d need to figure out exactly what kind of non-human she was.

Two of the Judoon moved in behind her and grabbed her by the arms, presumably so she wouldn’t try to make a break for it. River could feel Clint’s displeasure at this like an itch on the back of her neck, but he didn’t make a sound or attempt to intervene. They’d planned for this. Fortunately, Rogers and Banner seemed to have the good sense to follow his lead. 

The second scan was considerably longer than the first. 

“Human and non-human genetic markers detected,” the Judoon declared. “Analyzing non-human DNA. Result. . .Time Lord.”

This was probably the closest a Judoon ever got to looking incredulous. 

“Well,” River said. “Fancy that.”

She carefully and deliberately pulled one arm free, then the other. The Judoon let her go. They might be small-minded (quite literally) enforcers, but they were small-minded enforcers who worked for the Shadow Proclamation. The words _Time Lord_ meant something to the Shadow Proclamation. River eyed up the Judoon Commander and saw his ears twitch slightly.

There were a couple of ways she could spin this. River decided to go with the one that would make the most impact. She felt her expression and posture shift into something that was different from her usual SHIELD agent intimidation technique. For this she needed nonchalance, carefully bottled fury, and a dash of madness.

She hadn’t spent a lifetime studying the Doctor and almost three years running with him for nothing.  
Funny how you internalized certain things.

“You stole a hospital full of humans right off the face of the planet so that you could skirt around the letter of the laws that you’ve sworn to uphold,” she said. “Did you really think no one was watching?”

The ears twitched again. “Doctor,” the Judoon Commander said.

“Surprise,” River replied with a smile. She stretched her arms out in front of her and made a show of looking at her hands. “Not my usual look, I know. I’ve never been female before. A few things went pear-shaped during that last regeneration. Still, it’s good to try new things, especially when you get to be my age.”

Stark’s voice came over the comm. “Okay, the scoop is inside. Abea’s starting work now. Whatever you do, don’t let the Judoon go for coffee.”

That meant stalling for more time. Fortunately, River excelled at that. She paced a circle around the Judoon Commander. It killed a few seconds, was subtly intimidating, and it gave her a chance to check on Clint, Rogers, and Banner. The latter two looked a little like treed cats, apprehensive and not sure how they’d gotten themselves into this position. Clint, on the other hand, just flashed her a grin and a quick thumbs-up behind the Judoon’s back.

“Doctor. Your long absence from the Shadow Proclamation has been noted,” the Judoon Commander said as River circled back around in front of him.

_Handy for me,_ River thought. If no one from the Shadow Proclamation had set eyes on the Doctor for a while, it made the “regeneration” story all the easier to sell.

“I’ve been quite busy,” she said. “Earth alone is a full-time job. It keeps attracting troublemakers who do inconvenient things like transport medical facilities to the Moon.”

“The Shadow Proclamation feared that the prophecy had come to pass,” the Judoon Commander said. “That the Doctor met his fate at Trenzalore.”

This declaration only threw River for a second. She was sure no one save Clint noticed.

“Clearly they were mistaken.” River lifted her chin in disdain. “The Shadow Proclamation should know that trying to get a prophecy to stick to a time traveler is about as effective as trying to get treacle to stick to Agpax hide. Besides, everyone knows that prophecies are no more than fairy tales. For all they know, I wrote that one myself for a spot of fun.”

Wouldn’t that be a twist? River knew that it wasn’t true—the Academy had carefully documented the source of the Trenzalore prophecy. It might be bullshit, but it was carefully annotated bullshit. 

River’s internal clock was running, trying to estimate how much time she’d need to buy for the Zecralt mechanic to do her thing. She hoped that the woman was working fast.

*****

Inside the Zecralt bolt hole, the air fairly stank from tension. Druts had claimed pacing rights, striding back and forth across the cramped, cluttered space while Riph and Chista tucked themselves into corners, trying to keep out of the way.

“This is taking too long. The humans must have double-crossed us,” Druts said. 

“Zad said that they sent Iron Man outside for the scoop,” Riph offered.

“Double-crossed, I say.”

They all jumped when the communications panel suddenly came to life with a loud series of chimes. 

“This is the Trade Ship _Indigo Sun_ of House Yilad. We received your distress signal. We’ve locked on to all five of your bio-signatures. Prepare for emergency energy-beam transfer.”

Druts whooped in relief. “We’re saved,” he said, just before the energy-beam caught him, his compatriots, and their hard-won bounty, beaming them to safety.

*****

“Must you keep breathing down my neck?” the alien woman, Abea, said irritably.

“I’m not here. Just ignore me,” Tony said, leaning further over her shoulder to watch what she was doing. 

He was a mechanical engineer. He had a chance to get a good look at the guts of an alien machine. His curiosity was piqued. Sue him.

It had taken him a few minutes to pick up on the logic of the H2O scoop’s internal workings, but Tony could see the pattern now. It looked like Abea was about halfway through the rewiring. Tony would have offered to help, but it had been made more than clear that he was not to touch anything. He could respect that. It wasn’t like he would have appreciated someone jumping in and fiddling with one of his projects. 

Still, his curiosity nearly earned him a broken nose. One second Abea was hunched over her work, the next second she reared back, sitting bolt upright on her heels.

“Jesus! What?” Tony asked.

The damn scoop wasn’t about to explode, was it?

Abea had one hand pressed to her ear. “Zad?” she said. “Did you--”

“I heard it.” Zad had his hand pressed to his ear as well. He looked at Tony; his expression actually looked rather stricken. “Mr. Stark, I’m sorry. I--”

Zad and Abea disappeared in twin flashes of orange light.

Tony gaped at the coffee shop, now empty save for himself, a half-dismantled H2O scoop, and two baristas.

“Son of a bitch.”

*****

Clint never got tired of watching River work. Whether she was fighting or running rings around a mark or breaking in new SHIELD recruits, it was always a hell of a show. But watching her impersonate the Doctor was something else again.

It was kind of terrifying, Clint thought. Awesome, but terrifying. Clint knew River had this side to her, of course, but it wasn’t usually on display like this. 

River might be only a little bit Time Lord, but a little bit of Time Lord went a long way.

What she was doing right now was the verbal equivalent of chess. River was walking a delicate line here. She had to keep the Judoon Commander’s attention, and since she was passing herself off as the Doctor she had to convey the impression that she had the upper hand in this situation. But she had to do it in a way that wouldn’t provoke a violent reaction or make the Judoon Commander call her bluff.

So far, so good.

“Okay,” Banner whispered, “I feel like a missed a few chapters. How is she making them believe she’s your friend, the Doctor? I’ve met him. There’s like. . . _no_ resemblance.”

“There’s this Time Lord thing called regeneration,” Clint replied. “I’ll explain when we’re not hostages.”

“Putting aside how she’s doing it, how long can she keep this going?” Steve asked.

“As long as she needs to,” Clint said. That was how Strike Team Delta always worked: They did what needed doing for as long as it needed doing. “How long can it take to rewire the scoop?”

One day, _one day,_ Clint thought, he’d stop saying things like that.

“Guys?” Tony’s voice cut in over the comm. “I think we have a problem.”

One of the Judoon lackeys, the one that was manning what looked like a communications hub, seemed to agree. “Commander. Zecralt trade house ship entering low lunar orbit. Five transport beams detected.”

The Judoon Commander appeared to swell up. It reminded Clint oddly of Nick Fury right before the man handed someone his own ass.

“All Judoon, emergency transport back to the ship,” the Judoon Commander said. “We will pursue the criminals.”

He smacked his fist against the insignia on the chest of his uniform and he—and all the other Judoon—disappeared in columns of green light.

“Uh. What the hell just happened?” Banner said.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Stark said. “The Zecralt just pulled a _beam-me-up-Scotty._ They’re gone.”

“And the Judoon are going after them,” Clint said, moving to the front windows of the lobby. “Look.”

“I’m not an expert,” said Steve as the Judoon ships lifted off, “but I don’t like the odds of them coming back.”

“They might,” River said grimly, “after they’ve chased down and captured the Zecralt ship. _If_ they can capture it. But yeah, I’m not liking the odds, either.”

“Even if they plan to come back, we don’t have time to wait for them,” Clint said. The air was getting thinner by the minute, and there were people in St. Mark’s who weren’t going to be able to take that. “Stark, how far did Abea make it on reconfiguring the scoop?”

“Not far enough.” There was a beat of silence. “But I was watching her work and I think I can finish the reconfiguration. It might not be exact, but--”

“Start working,” Rogers said. “Exact or not, we need to get back to Earth.”

*****

“Could you stop breathing down my neck? _All_ of you?” Tony asked. “This is hard enough as it is.”

Rogers, Banner, Song, and Barton all backed away slightly, and Tony turned his full attention back to the interior workings of the H2O scoop. He was almost there. Three connections. Two connections. One connection.

“Okay,” Tony said, wiping his forehead. “I think that’s got it. Now, if I’ve got this right, it just needs a power surge to activate the transfer. Song, hand me those orange cables.”

Agent Song picked up the cables, frowning at the alligator clips on the ends. “Just out of curiosity, are you planning to hook these up to yourself?”

“Wow, you really are insightful,” Tony said, taking the cables and fixing the ends to what he hoped were the appropriate connections inside the H2O scoop. “Double A batteries aren’t going to cut it. The arc reactor is the biggest gun we’ve got in that department. God knows, we don’t want to half-ass this and only get halfway home.” 

Tony had already exposed the circuitry of the arc reactor he needed to attach the leads to. He held the clips poised over his chest, and sighed. “Seriously, all of you _stand back.”_

If he electrocuted himself, it would be professional risk-taking. If he electrocuted one of the other Avengers, that would just be sloppiness.

Tony clipped the leads to the arc reactor and every light on the H2O scoop blazed to life. There was a loud crash. For a second he was afraid he’d overloaded the scoop and blown it, but then he recognized the sound for what it had been: Thunder. 

Rain began to pour outside. Tony laughed.

“Hang on kids,” he said to the others as light began to flare among the raindrops. “We’re going home.”


	6. Chapter 6

_Somewhere on Earth. . ._

“Well, this definitely isn’t Newark.”

Clint and River stood in front of the hospital looking out over a vast field of tall purple flowers. Clint could see a forest off to the right, maybe a quarter of a mile away. Dead ahead, in the distance, he could see blue and what he was pretty sure was a shore line. Clint sniffed the air. He could tell that they were back on Earth. All other planets, he knew from experience, smelled just a little bit _off._ Even prehistoric Earth still smelled like Earth. They were home, but he’d be damned if he knew where.

“River?”

River’s eyes were closed and her head tilted slightly to one side, a sign that her inner GPS was working. 

“Manitoba,” she said, opening her eyes again. “Way up north. That’s Hudson Bay. I’d have to check a map to be sure, but I’d say we’re within a hundred miles or so of Churchill.”

“Hey. I’ll take it,” Clint said. Stark may have missed their destination by over a thousand miles, but Clint could think of plenty of worse places they could have landed. He pulled out his phone and hit his speed dial. “I can’t wait to hear what Phil says.”

“Once he’s said it, ask him if we can take Ms. Custis up on her offer.” River grinned tiredly. “A long weekend in boring suburbia sounds really nice to me right now.”

“No aliens. No weird new teammates. No lunar landings. Phil!” Clint said in response to the _Hello_ in his ear.

“Hawkeye, what’s your status?” No one but Phil could sound so calm when he was anything but.

“Situation is secure. The Judoon are gone. St. Mark’s Hospital and everyone in it are back on Earth.”

“What? I’m here watching the news coverage. There’s no sign of the hospital.”

“Yeah, about that,” Clint said. “It’s kind of a funny story. . .”

*****

Within two hours of their glorious return to Earth (witnessed only by a flock of birds and a couple of freaked out bears), SHIELD planes started to arrive, setting down in the open field in front of St. Mark’s. The planes started offloading personnel there to do. . . God knew what. Strategize how to move all of the patients back to New Jersey, probably, Tony thought. He didn’t envy whoever had to coordinate that.

Tony’s eyes were drawn to one particular quinjet which had landed quite close to the building. He grinned and started to walk toward it when he saw a familiar small figure with white hair and a cane descend the ramp.

“Aunt Meg! What brings you up to the great frozen north?”

“Oh, I just happened to be in the neighborhood.” Meg Downing folded her hands neatly on the handle of her cane. “I’m given to understand that Canada is just one big neighborhood.”

“I half expected you to be Fury.”

“I believe Nicholas is a bit busy dealing with irate politicians at the moment,” Meg replied. “Apparently Governor Christie wants his hospital back.”

Tony cringed slightly, glancing over his shoulder at St. Mark’ Hospital. The building was fine, especially considering what it had been through today. It was going to wind up being a great landmark on the tour of _Weird-Ass Events: The North America Edition._ But moveable? Not so much. The arc reactor had been a little too much for the Judoon’s H2O scoop. The thing was still smoking. Tony wasn’t sure he’d want to press his luck by trying to use it again, anyway.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. On the plus side, they should be able to salvage all of the equipment and supplies. And the staff has been going through the hospital doing a head count. It looks like we actually made it through this without losing anybody. No casualties.”

“There’s just the tiny matter of them being 1500 miles from home.”

“Hey, under the circumstances, I think I did pretty well,” Tony said. “We could have landed in the middle of the ocean. Or Afghanistan. Or at a Justin Bieber concert. I was flying by the seat of my pants with alien technology.”

“Valid point.” Meg Downing smiled. “You did very well, Anthony. Your father would be proud.”

Tony would almost rather she keep razzing him about landing in the wrong country. He shifted uncomfortably, the way he always seemed to do when his father and feelings occupied the same conversation.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said.

Meg gave him a knowing look. “And then he would have tried to find a way to claim credit.”

Tony laughed. “That’s more like it.” 

Trust Aunt Meg to throw out a life preserver when uncomfortable emotions reared their ugly head a little too high.

“I came to offer you all a ride back to civilization,” Meg said. “You do have a team around here somewhere, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Tony jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the hospital. “They’re all in the coffee shop, trying to keep a low profile. Come on in. The employees keep making us take pastries.”

“True heroes’ tribute, that,” Meg said, walking into the hospital with Tony. “I look forward to a personal debriefing on what happened today.”

“Better clear your calendar,” Tony replied. “Today has been a little complicated.”

*****

“Song? There’s one thing I can’t figure out,” Rogers said later when they were on Meg Downing’s quinjet, heading south.

River lifted her head from Clint’s shoulder. She had just gotten comfortable—or as comfortable as it was possible to get in a jump seat. She looked across the aisle at Rogers.

“Yeah?” she said.

“I understand the whole regeneration thing,” he said. “That’s how you were able to fool them into thinking you were the Doctor.”

River had explained Time Lord regeneration to Rogers, Banner, and Stark in the hospital coffee shop over stale danishes while they were waiting for SHIELD to show up. This had led to a long discussion about the practical aspects of suddenly swapping sexes.

They’d all been a little punchy by that point.

“The part I can’t figure out is how you fooled their scanner,” Rogers continued. “How did you get it to read you as not human?”

River knew it wasn’t just an idle question. Rogers wasn’t stupid any more than Clint was. Part of River’s job was knowing how to angle a conversation for the sake of getting information and to recognize when others were doing the same. Rogers’ attempt wasn’t even all that subtle. He wanted to know if that scan had been fooled at all.

And honestly, River had been waiting for the question. She knew there was no way her new teammates would just let what had happened slide without comment. That was one reason she’d played it big, passing herself off as the Doctor himself. A big lie to help create a smoke-screen to mask the only slightly more mundane truth.

Meg Downing was watching the conversation with interest. She caught River’s eye and, just for a second, a smile of rueful commiseration turned up her mouth. Meg Downing was an old woman with a lot of secrets, too.

“I figure it’s a trick the Doctor taught you. Right?” Banner said.

“Like you’re carrying a little vial of the Doctor’s DNA around in case of emergencies?” Stark asked. “That’s kind of gross.”

River rolled her eyes and looked over at Clint. He raised his eyebrows in a question.

_Do we trust them?_

River turned back to Rogers.

“How did I trick their scanner?” River smiled. “I am exceptionally good at my job.”

“That’s all we get?” Rogers asked.

“That’s all you get.”

River knew that Fury and Phil and even Meg Downing herself would help her run interference if the other Avengers decided to press the issue. And there might very well come a time when she’d trust her new team enough to include them in her secret, or would have no choice but to do so.

But for now, River would let them wonder.

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose the moral of the story is that _the course of superhero team-building never did run smoothly._ And really, what would be the fun if it did? But they'll get there.
> 
> Thank you for reading. More to come!


End file.
